


Higher Than Soul Can Hope

by cheekylady



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheekylady/pseuds/cheekylady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People say that little girls grow up and marry someone just like their fathers. Darcy never really believed in any of that, because, well, her father wasn’t anyone’s role model.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work. A huge and deeply felt Thank You goes to LadySarah (nourgelitnius on tumblr) for being the best Twinny, Cheerleader, and Beta a girl could ask for. To Meri (merideathislost / typhoidmeri) for being encouraging, waving pompoms, and also looking over this work. To Katy (katertots/dopemixtape), for being supportive as well as being an enabler in many things. To usedkarma on tumblr, for translating a poster that shall be featured later. To the ladies of Darcyland - you and your supportive pom-pom waving make this fandom a wonderful place to be. Keep writing all the fic! Ship all the things!

People say that little girls grow up and marry someone just like their fathers. Darcy never really believed in any of that, because, well, her father wasn’t anyone’s role model. She can’t remember a time when he acted like a father should. That duty fell to her uncles. Grant was only seven when she was born, and Kevin was only five. They were, in many ways, more like siblings than anything else.

Her grandparents had died when her father, Jackson, was 18, and he took custody of Grant and Kevin, as they had no other living relatives. She came along two years later. She wasn’t exactly planned, her mother had just shown up with her one day, and that was that. Grant told her that in those first few years they were an unconventional, if happy, family. She has no memory of it. She was just a baby, and the boys were sort of fascinated, and sort of disgusted by her at the same time. 

She cried all the time, and didn’t really start becoming interesting to them until she started trying to crawl. Then, she would follow her brothers around everywhere, much to their chagrin. She constantly was pulling at them to have them carry her around, and hated to be left behind. They begin to pray for her to learn how to walk. Of course, when she did, they wished she could forget how. She had two speeds: break-neck fast, and sleeping. She ran everywhere. Her first word was “ant!”, and no matter how Grant tried, it was another six months before she could even begin to attempt to pronounce his name properly. Her second word, was “‘evin”, and her third was “up”. She came by the nickname Monkey naturally - her favorite place to be was perched on her brother’s backs or in their arms. 

When Darcy was three, Jackson lost his job at the factory. He tried to find another job, but they were scarce for a 23 year old with 3 kids and no more than a high-school education. Her mom, who hardly came by to see her to begin with, disappeared altogether. That’s when things started to get rough. 

He started drinking. He found a part time job, and things got a bit better. Money was tight, but they made do. Then the part-time job ran out, but the beer runs didn’t. It became a cycle -he’d get part time work, hold that down for a while, and then would lose that job. He started drinking more. Then he’d get another job, lose it, and drink some more. Grant had always been her and Kevin’s unofficial babysitters, but slowly, he became their primary caregiver. Jackson just stopped caring, about anything.

It was Grant who started to make sure the bills were paid after a disastrous winter where they cut off the electricity and they had no heat in January. Grant was the one who made sure that Kevin had his homework done, and asked old Mrs. Dugan in the apartment next door to watch Darcy when they were in school. He taught himself to cook, because Jackson either wasn’t there, or was too drunk to do so. With all the resilience of childhood, Grant and Kevin bonded together, and thought that things would get better. 

They didn’t. Her very first memory was of the first time Grant got hit. Jackson was too drunk to make dinner that night, so Grant did. Darcy doesn’t remember exactly what happened, a vague memory of wanting Grant’s attention, trying to grab something she shouldn’t have, and Grant having to rescue her from her own mess. She’d distracted him, and he burnt dinner, almost to the point of making it inedible. Her dad was furious, yelling at Grant, and backhanded him across the face. He went to bed that night hungry and with a black eye and split lip as she and Kevin cried in his arms.

After that first time, Grant, who was sometimes more nimble than a cat, got a reputation for being more clumsy than she was. And her reputation was such that if there was a loose step or a mud puddle in a two mile radius, she’d be the one to find it and scrape her knee or muddy her clothes. Grant took the abuse, terrified that if he told anyone, they’d be taken away by child services, never to see each other again. He wore long sleeves, and blamed bruises on being clumsy or rough-housing with Kevin. Kevin always, always, backed his brother, just as scared to be taken away.

When Grant was thirteen, Kevin couldn’t take the abuse anymore. He tried to stop Jackson, tried to intervene, shoving Darcy into a safe place in their room. The moment that Kevin’s arm was broken and his ribs were bruised changed the family dynamic forever. Grant signed up for defense lessons, using money from his paper route, and started hitting back. It didn’t change overnight. More often than not, Grant got bruises for his trouble, and Kevin still didn’t let him face him alone. Eventually, the abuse stopped. Apparently a target who hit back didn’t appeal much.

Jackson, who hadn’t been around much to begin with, was around even less, preferring to spend his time getting kicked out of bars than raising children. When Darcy started Kindergarten, Grant skipped class to walk her to Mrs. Dugan’s after school let out. He put her on his bike and took her to the park and to t-ball practice, helped her with her homework and gave her advice. He enrolled Kevin in the same defense classes he was in, helped him with little-league, and did his best to make sure that they had everything they needed. He graduated from paper-delivery boy to working nights as a busboy at the local diner when she and Kevin were asleep to keep them in clothes that fit and food that was actually worth eating.

The day Grant turned 18, he moved them out of Jackson’s life, and into an admittedly crappy apartment. It was small, but it was safe, and they had each other. It was a month before Jackson even knew they had gone, and even then it was because the school called the wrong phone number, trying to reach Grant. 

When Grant joined the Army when Darcy was twelve, right after Kevin was 18 and could take custody of her, she didn’t exactly handle it well. He was the only father figure she had ever had, the one person she could completely count on, and he just left. Sure, he came home when he had leave, sent the vast majority of his paycheck home to her and Kevin, wrote letters and called every chance he could, but he’d promised to always be there for her and Kevin, and he’d just gone. He’d said it was really the only option he had to support them, but she was damn sure he could have stayed to do it. 

Darcy resented the fact that Grant wasn’t there for her when she started going through puberty and all the drama that hormones brought. He wasn’t there to threaten her first date, or hold her as she cried after her first break up. He couldn’t take her shopping for a dress to the formal, or any of the other things that an adolescent goes through.

It had been Kevin who tried to help, and while she loved him to pieces, it wasn’t the same. She was angry that Grant left and worried about him being deployed overseas at the same time. She waited by the phone on days that she knew that he’d call, yet when he came home, all but ignored him. His visits, already strained to begin with, became fewer as he advanced in skill and rank, and the calls didn’t happen as often, which, in retrospect, just compounded her already existing issues with abandonment, self-doubt and confidence. Their conversations changed from “I miss you here’s what’s going on calls” but the “What the hell were you thining?!” ones.

She held onto the belief that once he left the army, he’d come home again. Not that she’d told him or Kevin that, she just wanted her brother back. When she got the news that he’d taken a position with Human Rights Watch that required frequent travel, their already strained relationship became worse.

Still, by the time Darcy was applying to college, it was Grant that anted up and paid for what her scholarships didn’t cover, which was most of it. It was Grant who freaked out about her living in a co-ed dorm and sent her a taser, just in case. Kevin just shook his head and told her to keep up with her Krav Maga, and gave her an iPod loaded up with their favorite ‘let’s be silly and dance around the kitchen making cup-cakes’ mix.

She told neither of them about Thor and the giant-space-robot-from-hell. Grant would have whisked in from wherever he was with Human Rights Watch, and locked her up somewhere where he could always have an eye on her. Kevin... well, Kevin would have helped, before insisting that the she also get a tracker implanted so they could keep an eye on her at all times.

It was, however, the impetus needed to have Darcy call Grant. Which, of course, made him immediately suspicious.

“What do you need, and what went wrong?”

“What makes you think I need something? Can’t I just call you?”

“No. Not since I - did Kevin put you up to this?”

“No! Geeze, chill. I can call you without prompting. I just - I wanted to let you know that I’m going to keep working for Jane after I get my degree.”

“Why? She’s an astrophysicist, and your degree is in a completely-”

“I know that! I just, I really like her. And she’s doing cutting edge research, and she needs me, Grant. I might not completely understand everything, but I can’t just leave her -”

“You adopted her.”

“Yes,” she paused, processed. “Wait- No! She’s a person-”

“That’s never stopped you before. Kev will back me on this. So, are you going to be staying in New Mexico?”

“I think so. It depends on where she needs to go for research, but yeah, for now. Are you gonna come visit me?”

There was a surprised silence over the line. “If you’re still there when I can take vacation time, then yeah. Always, Darcy.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

Of course, when Grant finally did have time to come visit her, Jane was dragging her to Norway. No matter how much she pleaded, either to cancel the trip entirely, or at the very least leave her behind, Jane wouldn’t waver.

“Jane - come on. Norway will still be there in a week. Why do we have to drop everything and go all of a sudden?”

“Not for what we’re looking for Darcy, besides, your brother was here not even a month ago.”

“That was Kevin, not Grant. Grant hardly ever has time off.”

“Ask him to push his vacation back a week. It’s hardly like it’s life or death.”

Which was ironic, considering that New York turned into a war zone not three days later.

Both Jane and Darcy freaked out over the footage they saw on the television. Darcy, with Jane’s blessing, may or may not have hacked into SHIELD to figure out what exactly was going on. Jane, because, well, Thor, and Darcy because Grant had mentioned something about New York in their last phone call and she hadn’t exactly been paying attention. Not that she’d ever tell him that. It took her three hours to get ahold of Kevin, and Grant’s phone kept going to voice mail.

“Darce - he’s fine-”

“How do you know that- he could be-”

“Darcy!”

“What?!”

“He’s in Paris.”

“What? Why is he in Paris?”

“You don’t think that there could be human rights violations in France? That’s rather shallow of you -”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just... surprising. Especially since I recall him being rather spectacularly bad at speaking French.”

“Oh god, yes. Do you remember that time when he was trying to impress...” and the conversation devolved into each trying to one-up each other in embarrassing stories about Grant and his (failed) attempts at picking up girls.

Eventually, Grant called, and she found a vintage French poster in the mail when she and Jane returned to New Mexico. She laughed when she opened the tube, and promptly had it framed.

They didn’t stay long in The Land of Enchantment. Jane had figured out that they had been sent away to Norway by SHIELD, and saying that she was furious would have been putting it mildly. Darcy wasn’t exactly pleased either, what with her visit from Grant having been postponed for six months due to their little jaunt, and joined her crusade to relocate to New York to study whatever remained of the Portal. Their efforts had culminated in a rather epic verbal battle with Jane dressing down some poor schmuck at SHIELD, eventually convincing them that since they wanted a working Einstein-Rosen bridge this decade they’d send her to New York to continue her research and collect whatever data she could from the portal that had opened above the city. 

Two and a half months after what became known as The Battle of New York, Darcy was in the Big Apple.


	2. Chapter 2

New York was everything and nothing like Darcy thought it would be. She had known, intellectually, that there had been a battle there. It was another thing to see it, even nearly three months later.

She had expected that there would be clean-up and reconstruction going on still. It was a huge disaster area, so she wasn’t surprised to see the Red Cross relief workers and volunteers, or the city blocks cordoned off by the Army National Guard. What she hadn’t realized was the loss of so much housing would cause the cost of living to go up so much. SHIELD had been generous enough to provide a place for _Jane_ at a fixed some-what reasonable rate, but had apparently forgotten about her.

Jane was nice enough to let her crash on her couch while she tried to find a more permanent place to live. But it had been nearly three weeks, and she _still_ couldn’t find anything that a) she could afford, b) had neighbors that didn’t make her skin crawl, and c) her brothers would allow her to live in. Each time she went and looked at a possible place, she heard them in her head. “No, Darcy. Look at these locks. That’s mold in the ceiling. Look elsewhere.”

She was on her bi-weekly call to Kevin complaining about her apartment hunting problems when he suggested that she call Grant.

“No,” Darcy said flatly, as she poured herself a cup of coffee, the phone wedged between her shoulder and her ear.

“He knows people-”

“Just no. I can do this _without_ his help.” She stuck her head in the fridge to find the creamer.

“I never said you couldn’t -”

“Besides, he says that I only call him when I want something, which is totally unfair. I call him all the time.” The lack of response on the other line was not helping. “I do!” She stirred her coffee a bit more vigorously than strictly needed.

“Darce you call _me_ all the time. Not Grant.”

“I’ve called him more often recently.”

“It’s not quite the same, Darcy Girl. Just call him. He just wants to know that you’re safe and happy. He can help you find a place.”

“Oh, because him walking out -”

“Darcy. Enough. Just call.”

 

It took another week of prodding, and Jane making not-so-subtle hints about finding her own place that for her to call.

 

“Grant! Hi, so I was thinking-”

“What do you want now, Monkey?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“When it stops bothering you, I will. What did you want? I’m at work.”

“I need some help finding a place in New York, and Kev suggested I ask you.”

“Why would you need to find a place to live in New York?”

“Um, because I live here now.”

“I thought you were working with Jane in New Mexico.”

“I was. Then we moved to New York. I sent you an email.”

“You sent me an email to tell me you were moving. You couldn’t have called?” She winced at his tone.

“Um, I did. You didn’t pick up. And I sent the email like a month ago. Not my fault you don’t check it.”

“Why did she move to New York anyway? I thought she worked for the University and they were sponsoring her work there.”

“She did. But she was headhunted by some research thingy while we were in New Mexico, and now we’re in New York.”

“‘Research thingy’ - Darce, do you even know who you work for?” Of course she did. But those pesky non-disclosure forms with interesting penalty clauses really were a pain in the ass when she was trying to calm her brother down.

“Technically, I work for Jane, so as long as I still get my paycheck, what does it matter?”

“What does it matter? Darcy. You could be working for some-”

“Chill, bro. I doubt that Jane would work for anyone skeevy or bent on world domination. Besides- Astrophysics remember? It’s not weapons technology. Anyway, about that whole ‘needing a place to live in New York thing’ -”

“Look, I have to go -” she heard an alarm start to ring in the background.

“Seriously? I don’t call that often, and I still need-”

“I’ll call back when I have something for you.”

“Fine. But if I wind up living in a cockroach infested tenement with drug dealers and hookers - it’s totally your fault!” She huffed and hung up.  
____

Thirty-thousand feet in the air, Grant stared at his phone and sighed.

“Problem, Ward?”

“No. Just,” he paused, and turned to face his boss. “You wouldn’t happen to have any contacts in New York who would know of affordable housing in a safe area? Well away from Stark Tower?”

“I might know someone, why?”

“A friend called-”

“You, have friends? Well stop the presses.” Skye walked into the lounge area with Jemma.

“Of course he has friends, Skye,” Jemma said. “What are all of us then?”

“Teammates. Co-workers. Annoyances,” Grant said the last with a pointed look at Skye.

Skye cocked her head at him. “So - to clarify, Ward, which one am I?”

“You figure it out.” With that, he walked out with Coulson.

______

Darcy was feeling lighthearted as she took a second load of boxes from the car to her brand new apartment. Grant had come through. She had a sneaking suspicion that she shouldn’t ask how he helped her get a lease to an apartment that she could actually afford right next to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. It might be only slightly larger than her college dorm room, with a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, but it was _hers_ , damn it.

Of course, she now needed to get furniture for it. She had a mattress - Jane had sprung for that as a sort of housewarming / thank-you-for-being-my-person gift, but that was pretty much it.

She was contemplating how much she could trust Craiglist ads in the Big Apple, and how outrageously expensive furniture was, when she caught sight of something flying towards her face. She had absolutely no time to dodge.

“Ow, Jesus Fucking Hell,” she muttered as she pushed herself into a sitting position and caught sight of the baseball that had apparently decided she needed to be up close and personal with Mother Earth. The two boxes she had been carrying were looking squished, but luckily all the held were clothes, so no harm there.

“Ma’am, are you alright,” a deep and worried voice called out. She glanced to her right and saw a concerned looking tall blonde quickly approaching her, a baseball mit tucked under his arm, with an equally handsome dark haired man sauntering behind him carrying his own mit and a bat.

She held a hand to her aching head. “First, don’t call me ma’am. Second, what the hell are you doing throwing balls into innocent people’s faces?”

Tall blonde and adorable had reached her at that point, and was bending down to ostensibly help her up when his darker counterpoint grinned and said, “Apparently needing work on our catching. He was supposed to catch the damn ball in -”

“One of the many a baseball fields across the street?” She glanced at him as blondie-bear helped her up. “What, you decided you were too good to play in the public parks and moved onto the sidewalks? Who does that?”

“We, do apparently. I’m really sorry about this. I told you it was a bad idea, Buck.” Blondie-bear glowered at his friend as he bent down to pick up the box she had been carrying.

“Well, next time if you can’t make it to the park, stay in the batting cages. Jesus. My head.”

“I’m really sorry about this Miss-”

“It’s Darcy. Darcy Lewis.”

“Miss Lewis.”

“No Miss, Ma’am, or Mademoiselle. Call me Darcy. It’s the least you can do after hitting me in the head with a baseball.”

“Steve Rogers, the Jerk with the good aim over here is Buck- James Barnes.”

She glanced at the batter. “Funny, you don’t look like a deer.”

“And you’re not much of a comedian. It’s a nickname - Bucky.”

“Cute. Nice to meet you both, but I need to go find some ice to put on this knot -”

“Can we help?”

“With finding me ice?” She shook her head, wincing slightly. “I just need to go see if there’s any in my apartment.”

The dark haired one, Bucky, raised a brow at her. “You’re not sure you have any?”

“I’m just moving in. Hence the box of my stuff your friend has.”

“Do you need any help with the rest of it?”

She gave Steve an assessing look. “Yes, yes, I do. It’s not much, but I’ll take the help I can get.”

“It’s the least we can do.”

“Alright, my stuff’s over here.” She walked back towards the SUV she’d borrowed from SHIELD and opened the back hatch.

Steve stopped her before she could grab another box. “Let us take these up. Just show us where they go.”

“Okay. I’m on the third floor, fair warning.”

“Could be worse, Doll,” Bucky said as he hefted three boxes and followed her. “You could be on the 8th floor in a death trap of an apartment complex. This looks like it at least meets fire code.”

“My brother helped me find the place, so yeah. It’s tiny, but safe. I take it you’ve lived in some interesting places?”

Steve snorted. “You could say that.”

“Do tell.”

“It’s a long story, sweetheart, and we’ve only just met you.”

She rolled her eyes as she unlocked her door. “Uh-huh. Well, this is me.”

The boys walked in, glanced around, and put the boxes on her kitchen counters while she walked over to her freezer and dug out some ice cubes to put in a dish towel.

“Darcy, I think you’ve forgotten something,” Bucky said, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall and observed her.

“What?”

“Furniture.”

She stared at him, ice pack firmly held to her head. “I’m beginning to think you’re a bit of an ass. I just moved in, and it’s my first place. I don’t own any furniture.”

“Do you have a place to sleep? We have a couch you could crash on tonight,” Steve said.

“Um, no. I do have a mattress. Besides, like Bucky said, I just met you.”

Steve smiled, “I guess that’s true. Would you like to join us for dinner later tonight? Since you don’t have any furniture to eat on?”

“That would be nice. I don’t really know the area, so I wouldn’t know what’s good to get take out from. Which was my original plan, seeing as I think I have maybe one frying pan and a whisk. And no groceries, come to think of it.”

Steve laughed. “Well, we’ll stop by around 7ish and take you to dinner.”

“I hope you like pizza, Doll. Come on Punk, let’s go play,” Bucky said as he headed towards the door.

Darcy hesitated, then reached out and grabbed Steve’s arm. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

“You don’t want to unpack?”

“I hate unpacking more than I hate packing, and it’s probably one of the only nice afternoons left. I’d much rather go play ball.”

Bucky looked skeptical. “You sure you could keep up, doll-face?”

“I played shortstop on a team that went to State all four years. I think the question is can you keep up with me?”

“We’re not playing soft-ball.” Bucky tossed and caught his baseball as if to prove a point.

“No, really? Neither did I. I played on the Men’s Varsity team.”

“They allowed that?”

She gave Bucky a feral grin. “They didn’t _allow_ anything. I made them. Besides, their own rules let me. Let me go grab my glove and a hair tie. I’ll be right back.”

Steve grinned at Bucky as she disappeared back towards her room. “Seems to me you used to be a bit smoother with dames than that.”

“I saw that look on your face, Punk, you were thinking the same thing I was.”

“I’m just not stupid enough to say anything.”

“Who are you calling stupid?”

“Hopefully not me,” Darcy said as she walked back in the room, mit in hand. “Now come on, we’re wasting daylight.”

“You sure you’re okay playing after being hit in the head?” Steve asked, concerned.

“Just as long as neither of you hit me again, I think we’ll be fine.”

“I just threw the ball, Doll. Rogers here didn’t catch it.”

Darcy smacked his arm as they walked down the stairs. “What did I say? Ass.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to Twinny, LadySarah, who is the world's best Beta and head cheerleader. I owe much of this fic to you. Thanks also go to Katy and Meri for being sounding boards and cheerleaders and all around awesome ladies.

The next day, Darcy had a bright grin on her face as she walked into Jane’s new lab.

“You’re in _way_ too good of a mood for having just spent the weekend unpacking.” Jane put down her cup of coffee, looking at Darcy suspiciously.  
  
“That’s because I didn’t unpack. At all.”

Jane stared at her. “Then what on earth did you do all weekend?”  
  
Darcy grinned as she walked over to her desk. “Played baseball with these two _really_ hot guys that I met, and then they took me out to dinner. It was this really fantastic pizza joint that’s been there forever....”

“Seriously? You’ve been here for less than a month, and you’ve already had a date?”

“A) it wasn’t a date; B) They hit me in the head with a baseball. It was the least they could do.”  
  
“Isn’t that an inherent risk in playing baseball?”  
  
“Playing the game, yes. Not when I’m walking into my apartment building.”

Jane stared. “Please tell me you didn’t hurt them.”  
  
“What? No! It was an accident. I did yell at them, ‘cause, you know, they hit me in the head, and then they helped me bring my boxes in. Besides, as you like to remind me, tasers are illegal in New York.”  
  
“You almost got arrested on our second day here, Darcy.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

Jane looked at her in disbelief.  “You pulled a taser on an undercover cop.”  
  
Darcy shrugged.  “Well, he shouldn’t have looked like a crazy homeless dude about to rob us.”  
  
“He was _undercover_.”

“Whatever. Hey look, we’re getting a video call.”  Darcy spun her chair around to face the large screen on the wall. “Gotta love good timing.”

“Wait - what?”

Darcy sighed, and pulled Jane into the camera’s frame of view. “You know, that whole ‘we work for SHIELD’s research division’ thing? That includes collaborating with other people. Say ‘hi’ to Leo and Jemma, Jane.”

“Hi Leo and Jemma,” Jane repeated obediently. “Wait, Fitz and Simmons, what are you doing on our TV?”

Darcy stared at her. “You completely missed the conversation before we moved about them being transferred from the New York office to some super-secret field post, didn’t you?”

“No.” Jane said in an undertone. “Okay, yes. They’ve been here in this lab the entire time that we’ve been with SHIELD. I thought they’d still be here.”

“Hello Dr. Foster, sorry if we’re interrupting anything,” Jemma said as she waved at them.

Darcy turned back to the screen with a bright smile. “‘Sup guys? How’s life outside the lab? Is it everything you wanted it to be?”

“Well, it’s certainly more exciting that I thought it would be.”  
  
“What she means is it’s somewhat terrifying, followed by periods of near-boredom." Leo said as he glanced at Jemma.  
  
“You two really need to get out more if you think life outside the lab is like war.” Darcy stood up to lean against her desk.

“Wait - what?”  
  
“You know the saying, war is long periods of boredom punctuated by short moments of excitement.”  
  
Jane stared at Darcy. “Why do you know that?”

“Social Sciences, remember?”  
  
“Right. How could I forget?” Jane sighed.  
  
“We just need a wee opinion on something,” Leo interrupted.

“Would you mind running over to Eric’s lab to get his latest data while I assist Fitz and Simmons here?”

“Sure, boss-lady. Talk to you later, Leo, Jemma.”

“Bye Darcy. We’ll catch up later.” Jemma waved at her.

“Sure thing, Jemms. Leo- you still owe me a beer.”  
  
“I do not!” Fitz sputtered.

Darcy laughed and shook her head as she skipped out of the lab, barely paying attention to the conversation going on behind her.

 “Oh, Dr. Foster, this is our team-mate, Agent W-”

____  
  
Darcy was having a fantastic Friday. Jane had let her take the day off since they had wound up staying in the lab till past three in the morning the past two days. She got to sleep in, and woke up to the sound of gentle rain on her windowsill. She had a book that Kevin had recommended she read and was on her way to the coffee shop to curl up in an armchair, watch the rain, and read the afternoon away.  
  
She had just put her earbuds in to listen to her ‘The Sky Is Falling (and I quite like it)’ playlist as she left her apartment building, when she spotted a familiar figure ahead of her in a beat up leather jacket.

“Bucky! Wait up!” Darcy ran to catch up with him.

He turned around and waited for her to catch up with him. “Hey Doll. Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Got the day off. Isn’t it a beautiful day?”

Bucky gave her an incredulous look. “I think you have a different definition of the word than I do.”  
  
“Nah, I love rainy days. Why don’t you have an umbrella?”

 “It’s just sprinkling.”

“It’s supposed to rain _all day_. Here, you can share mine,” she said as she grabbed his arm and put the umbrella over both of them.

“I don’t need it, but thanks, I guess.” He took the umbrella, and glanced down at her. “What are you wearing?”

“A raincoat and galoshes?”

“Those aren’t galoshes. Galoshes are sensible. Those are not.” He stopped walking and pointed at her boots. “Those are zebra striped. With pink roses.”

“They are too!” Darcy released his arm to jump in a puddle next to them in the street just to prove it, and because, well, puddles were made to jump in. “See! Galoshes. My feet are dry _and_ stylish.”

“Do those have _heels_?”

She gave Bucky hard look. “They’re wedges, and I’ll take whatever advantage I can get, Barnes. Not all of us can reach the top shelf without a ladder. Besides, aren’t these the best?”  
  
“Well, they’re something, alright.”  
  
“You’re just jealous that you can’t look this fabulous.”

He chuckled, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and started walking again. “Come on, I was about to meet Steve for coffee. I’ll buy you some cocoa.”

“Why don’t I get coffee?”  
  
“You don’t need the caffeine. You’re hyped up enough as it is.”

“So your decision is to give me a drink that’s mostly sugar instead?”

Bucky laughed and looked down at her. “You’re telling me you wouldn’t add enough to your coffee to make it more sugar than anything else?”

She gave him a long look out of the corner of her eye as he opened the door to the coffee shop. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

“There’s Steve,” Bucky nodded towards a head of blonde hair that was seated in a cluster of plush chairs in the corner. “Let’s go set your stuff down before I grab that cocoa for you.”

“‘Kay. Hi Steve, whatcha drawin’?”

Steve looked up from his sketchbook and smiled. “Darcy, I didn’t know you’d be joining us.”  
  
“Neither did Bucky. I saw him walking in the rain, and being the lady that I am, offered to let him share my umbrella.”

“Good to see that Chivalry isn’t dead. I like your boots.”  
  
“Ha! At least one of you has good taste,” Darcy crowed as she took off her purple rain coat and sat in the armchair next to Steve.  
  
“What?” He looked adorably confused.  
  
“Don’t ask, Punk. I’m gonna go grab a cup of Joe and a cocoa for the lady, you need a refill?”  
  
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though.”

Darcy took a moment to watch Bucky as he walked towards the counter, then wiggled her hands at Steve. “So, seriously, can I see?”

“It’s nothing much,” he says, as he hands over his sketchbook.

She started flipping through the pages, pausing to study a drawing of Bucky reading the newspaper in a window seat. “Steve, these are really good.” She looked up and smiled at him. “Were you in art school before you joined the Army?”

 Steve stiffed, almost imperceptibly. “What makes you say that?”

Darcy gave him a skeptical look, eyebrows raised as she looked him in the eye. “You both act like my brother did when he came back from deployment. You scan a room when you enter it, keep an eye on all exits, and you’ve positioned yourself in an easily defensible space with your back to the wall. You’re either former military or former cops.”

“You see more than most, doll,” Bucky said quietly as he passed her a large mug with a mountain of whipped cream on top and sat down in the chair across from her.

“Not really,” she said softly, and then grinned over at Steve. “But seriously, were you in art school? Because these make Da Vinci's drawings look like Steamboat Willy.”

 Steve laughed, and rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “Thanks, but um, no. Never had the money before we enlisted. Buck here scraped together some cash so I could take a few classes but it was never really an option before I joined up.”

“Are you an artist now? I am just now realizing I have no idea what it is you two actually do.”

“No. It’s just a hobby. We’re security contractors.”

 “Please tell me it’s not like Blackwater.”

Both men looked startled. “No, nothing like that.”

“Good,” she replied, looking much more content. “I have issues with Jack-booted thugs. I’m glad you’re not.”

 “Well, we do own work boots,” Steve smirked, as he accepted the sketchbook back from Darcy.

 “Just nothing quite as fancy as your galoshes. How’d you manage to get a day off when it’s your first week, anyway?” Bucky relaxed back into the chair, his gloved hand cradling the mug of his coffee.

“Technically, it’s only my first week in New York. I’ve been working for Jane for a while. We worked really late the past two nights, so she let me have today off to recoup.”

 “Jane?” Bucky interjected.

 “She’s the Boss-lady. She’s doing a lot of cutting edge research, and I am her proud minion.”

“Minion?” Steve asked, amused. 

“It’s more fun than just saying ‘assistant’ and I’m no longer her intern. I do just about everything she asks of me, and a thousand things she doesn’t just to keep things running. And to make sure she, you know, actually sleeps instead of being completely obsessed with ‘SCIENCE!’” 

Bucky glanced at Steve. “I wonder if it’s just a thing with all scientists?”

Steve grinned back, “It would certainly explain a lot.”  
  
Darcy glanced at the two of them. “I take it you know someone similar?”  
  
“Yeah - he’s more of an engineer, and we knew his Dad better, but both of them forget to eat once they get a project in their heads.”

“Sounds like Jane. And Eric. And Leo. And Jemma.” She paused, sipped her cocoa. “I think you give up your self-preservation instincts for an obsession with finding answers when you get your PhD.”

“I won’t argue with that.” Steve reached out to grab his coffee from the table in front of him, then glanced at her curiously. “Did you have any big plans for your day off?”  
  
“I’m not big into plans. I’m more of a play it by ear person, but I did have some ideas.”

“Like what, Kitten?”

“Well, I had actually planned on coming here and curling up with a book while I listened to the rain, but now that’s scrapped because I’m enjoying the company I have more than I would the book.”

Bucky grinned. “Seems like a good plan to scrap. Was that it?”

“No. I thought about going to the Brooklyn Museum this afternoon, and maybe watching ‘Singing in the Rain’ on my laptop later this evening.”  
  
“Why on your laptop and not your TV?”  
  
“You _do_ remember my apartment right? The complete lack of furniture? And Televisions?”

“You still don’t have anything yet?” Bucky looked incredulous.

Darcy pointed to herself. “Minion. Comes with a minion’s salary. I love working for Jane, but ‘research assistant’ is not a position that pays well. Furniture is kinda expensive. I’ve inquired about a few things on Craigslist, so hopefully I’ll have a couch this weekend. And some lamps. Lamps are good. I only have one overhead light in the entire apartment....” She sighed as she trailed off.  
  
Steve looked slightly skeptical. “Craigslist, Darcy?”

“What? It can’t be _that_ bad. I have an only slightly illegal taser that I’ll be taking with me, just in case.”  
  
Bucky burst out laughing. “Only slightly illegal? I think it’s _completely_ illegal.”

She threw a crumpled up napkin at him.

Steve ignored their byplay. “I don’t like the idea of you going by yourself.”  
  
Darcy turned away from Bucky to stare at him, arms crossed over her chest. “You sound like Grant. I can take care of myself, Steve.”

“I know that. Doesn’t mean that you should have to.”

“What, are you volunteering to go with me?” She raised her brow at him.

“I’d feel better if you weren’t alone meeting a complete stranger, so yes. Besides, how were you planning on getting a couch into your apartment on your own?”

“Honestly? I was going to bribe you and Bucky with Pizza and Beer.”

“Oh really?” Bucky leaned forward, “And how were you going to find us to ask?”

“Figured I’d call.”

“You don’t have either of our numbers, Darce.”

“You sure about that?” She grinned and got out her phone.

Almost immediately, Steve reached into his pocket to pull out his vibrating phone, and glanced down at it. “How the hell did you do that?”

“I swiped your phone when we were playing in the park on Sunday and texted myself so I’d have your number.”

Bucky just laughed as Steve stared at Darcy in disbelief. 

“Doll, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

“No, this is the evolution of friendship. It started when you hit me in the head with a baseball.”

“We’ve been over this, Steve was supposed to catch it. Thus it was not my fault.” Bucky had a put-upon look on his face as he pointed at the blonde next to him. “Blame Steve.”

“Not buying it.”  
  
“Guys!” Steve was laughing at this point. “Does it really matter anymore?”  
  
“Yes!”  
  
“No. What do you mean ‘Yes’?” Darcy yelped, coming out of her seat.

“I mean that you’re holding a grudge against me.” Bucky stood up as well, “Admit it’s an accident, and we’re good.”  
  
“I am not holding a grudge.”

“Yes, you are,” he said as he poked her in her side.

Darcy squeaked and moved away from him.

“Oh my god, you’re ticklish.” He reached for her, and she tried to squirm away.

“No, I’m not,” Darcy said between giggles.

Bucky’s fingers reached for her again and started to tickle her. Darcy never did get to go to the museum. She did wind up drinking Bucky’s coffee though.  


 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait for this chapter. It fought me in places. Thanks to my beta and twinny, LadySarah, and to Merideath and Katertots for helping.
> 
> Usedkarma gets a shout out for her lovely translation work which you may all enjoy below.

Darcy woke earlier than she would have liked to on a Saturday. She consoled herself with the fact that though she might not have furniture, yet, she did have a coffee machine, and proceeded to make herself a large cup of the life-giving beverage while she reminded herself that no, she couldn’t  go back to bed like a sane person, because it was Couch-Day.   
  
At precisely nine o’clock, she answered the knock on her door, and blinked slowly at the two grinning faces she revealed. “Oh god, no. You’re some of  _those_  people.”

Steve shot Bucky a glance, before looking at her, confused. “Those people?”

“ _Morning people_. The most insidious kind of person. How did I not pick up on this?” Darcy muttered as she waved them inside. “You probably get up, go for a five mile run and finish it by rescuing kittens while singing down the birds from the trees.”

“Puppies, actually,” Steve interjected, amused.

“What?” Darcy turned around after grabbing her purse.  
  
“I rescue puppies. I leave the kittens to the firemen. Their Union has pretty strict rules. And Bucky runs only under protest, with the promise of coffee.”

Bucky grinned and rocked back on his heels, “Don’t forget the waffles. Coffee and waffles.”

Darcy just looked from one man to the other, clutching desperately to her go-mug of coffee. “I haven’t had enough coffee for this.”  
  
“You know, you could at least offer us coffee,” Bucky said as he made a grab for hers.

“No, just - no,” she ducked under his arm and out the door. “I’ll treat you to lunch after we get my couch, but you do not get to come into my apartment acting all  _perky_  and then try and steal my coffee. Be tired and grumpy like a normal person.”

Steve just laughed as he pushed Bucky out the door. “Come on, let’s go get this couch.”

“I call shotgun!”

“What are you, five?” Darcy asked as she approached the non-descript truck she had borrowed for the day.

“No, I just prefer to have leg room,” Bucky said as he walked to the passenger door.

Darcy looked from Bucky to Steve, sighed, and tossed the keys to Steve. “I’ll sit in the middle.”

“You sure? It’s your -”  
  
“It’s not actually mine, I’m borrowing the truck from the research division. I also have the shortest legs,” she said as she climbed onto the bench seat.

Steve shrugged, and got in the car as Bucky climbed in next to Darcy. “So where are we going?”

“I have no idea. I just have an address,” Darcy shrugged as the engine turned over.  
  
“You’re kidding me, right?” Steve turned to look at her.

“Nope. I’ll just plug it into the GPS and George will tell us where to go.”  
  
“George?” Now both Bucky and Steve were staring at her.

“So I named the judge-y British man that gives directions. It’s perfectly natural to anthropomorphize disembodied voices.”

Bucky looked at her, disbelief in his eyes. “You can’t just pull out a map?”

“Pshaw. Who uses maps?” Darcy grinned.

“Kids these days.”

Darcy poked Bucky in the arm. “Who are you calling a kid? If you’re a day over thirty I’ll eat my hat.”  
  
Bucky laughed and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “You’re not wearing a hat to eat anyway.”  
  
“I’m smart like that.”

___

  
“Well, it’s certainly a couch,” Bucky said quietly.  
  
“What, were you expecting a llama?” Darcy whispered back.

“No, just something less -”  
  
“Floral?” Steve interjected. “Squishy? Short?”

“I’m on a tight budget, and  _I’m_ short. Any other concerns?”

“It’s hideous, and offends my delicate feminine sensibilities,” Bucky glanced at her. She snorted.

“What do you think, dear?” a soft voice interjected.

“I think it’s got great character,” Darcy grinned at Bucky as she turned to speak to the short elderly lady approaching the mustard yellow and purple floral print couch. “I know you were asking more for it, but would you mind taking $90?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t go down to much lower than my asking price.” The woman looked apologetic.  
  
Darcy smiled slightly, and nodded. “I understand, it’s just, well...” She trailed off. “The only thing I have in my shoebox of an apartment is a mattress, three cracked mugs, a coffee pot, and a vintage poster. So.... saving even a little bit on the couch will go a long way to actually having furniture.”

The woman laughed long and hard. “You’re not from around here.”  
  
“No Ma’am. Massachusetts by way of New Mexico. You can ask these boys here if you think I’m making things up. I don’t even have a television.”

“I’ll let you have it for $120, and add in a set of dishes.”

“I think we have a deal then.” Darcy got her wallet, following the older lady into the kitchen. “When did you get the couch, Mrs. Gale?”

Bucky turned and gave her a disbelieving look as Steve smothered a laugh, the two easily carrying the couch out the front door. “This had better be a damn good lunch.”  
__  
  
“Thank you boys!” Darcy crowed as she set the box of dishes on the kitchen counter.

“I object to being called a boy,” Bucky complained from his place sprawled the new couch.  “I am 100% man. 100% hungry man, to be precise. Feed me, woman.”

Steve laughed as he reached down to pull him up. “You’re 100% full of yourself, you mean, Punk.”

“There’s no way you’re not hungry, too,” Bucky said as he pulled Steve down onto the couch instead.  
  
“All right! All right!” Darcy skipped back into the room, bending down to pick up her purse. “Any requests? So far I’ve found a great Indian place, a place with amazing falafel, and this hole in the wall-” She turned around by the door to look at them. “Huh. Well, when you two are sitting on it I guess it is kinda small.”  
  
“I’d say it’s ideally Darcy-sized,” Steve grinned at her. “Why not get pizza?”

“Because the  _last_  time I got pizza with you two, I got a slice and a half out of the two  _huge_  pies we ordered. I want to actually eat more than that this time.”

“Would you be okay with going to a diner?” Steve asked as he got up off the couch and stretched, and then paused as something on the wall caught his eye.  
  
“God, yes. I love diners!”  
  
“Finally, a decision.” Bucky stood up and started pushing Darcy at the door. “Let’s eat.”

She laughed, and pulled out her keys. “Steve - come on! Bucky’s going to expire of hunger over here!”

“Just a second, Darce.”

She turned to see what was holding Steve up, and caught him staring at the poster that Grant had sent her back from France.

“Like it? I decided not to wait for furniture to hang it. Blank walls scare me.”

“Where did you get this poster?” he asked, a strange note in his voice, as he turned to look at her.

“My brother sent it to me from Paris. He thought I’d like it. I collect vintage posters. Well, vintage anything really…”

“But why  _this_ one in particular?”

“Hey Punk, what’s holding you up?” Bucky stepped in from the hall to see what was going on. “Well now, Darcy Girl. This is certainly an interesting poster.”

She looked from one to the other, and started grinning. “You’re both fluent in French, aren’t you?”

“Picked it up out of necessity,” Steve turned and smiled back at her. “So, your brother wants you to stay away from soldiers, or just keep you out of dance halls?”

“If he had his way, I’d be locked up in a convent, away from all men. But honestly, Grant’s horrible at languages and probably just thought it was a propaganda poster. If you don’t know what it says, it’s fairly innocuous, and the artwork is nice. I highly doubt that he knew it’s warning women that apparently all American Soldiers carry venereal disease.” 

Steve snorted, while Bucky, with mischief dancing in his eyes, walked up to the poster. “Ironic, don’t you think? If I recall correctly, they should have been warning the soldiers about the French women.”

“Buck-”

“Well, they did,” she leaned against the door jam and gave them an amused smile. “Venereal disease was a big problem – during WWI VD caused the army to lose the service of 18,000 service men per day. By WWII, it dropped to around 600 per day. Partially that was because of posters like this, and other awareness campaigns. Hell, even Captain America did a PSA announcement that was shown to servicemen.”

“You don’t say. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find any of these, now would you?” Bucky had a truly unholy grin on his face.

“Yeah, I wrote a whole paper on the subject. I could dig up my references, if you really want. Posters. Film clips,” she paused and smiled brightly at Bucky. “Instructional pamphlets.”

“I don’t need any instructions on how to use a rubber, doll. Now Rogers here-”

“Bucky. Stop,” Steve rolled his eyes as he cut Bucky off and started pulling him towards the door. “I thought we were getting lunch. I’m starved.”

Darcy laughed. “Shame. I could have taught you so much, Steve,” and with that, she swept out her door, leaving both men staring at her retreating figure.

“Hell of a dame,” Steve whispered.

“No kiddin’.” Bucky whispered back.

Darcy tossed her keys up to Bucky as she headed down the stairs. “Lock the door! Don’t want anyone walking off with my new couch.”  
  
“I don’t know of anyone besides you who would  _want_  it,” Bucky stated, locking the door and following Steve down the stairs.

“So where is this place?” Darcy asked, looping one arm through each of the boys as they exited the building.

Steve glanced down at her and smiled, “Just a couple of blocks away. They’ve been around a long time and make some of the best egg creams in Brooklyn.”  
  
“Egg creams?” Darcy looked skeptical.

Bucky chuckled. “Think of it as the world’s best chocolate milk. It’s a New York thing.”  
  
“I think I’ll prefer my malt. Why would you put eggs in chocolate milk?” Darcy made a face at them.

“It doesn’t have eggs. Just milk, seltzer, and chocolate.” Steve looked like he was really looking forward to having one.

“That’s not exactly reassuring, Steve.”  
  
“If you don’t like it, we’ll get you your chocolate malt, how’s that?” Steve asked.  
  
“Okay. Sounds like a plan.” She grinned, glancing from one man to the other. “So you said earlier that you guys grew up around here. Did you come to this place often?”  
  
“A long time ago.” Bucky said, his voice holding a strange note. “It’s changed a lot since we were running around.”  
  
Darcy glanced up at him, squeezing his arm tighter, hearing old wounds in his voice. “Everything changes, unfortunately,” she said hesitantly. “But you still have your memories of the good times you spent, right?”

She felt Steve stiffen and his arm tense as she heard Bucky snort, the sound somehow bitter to her ears.

“Not always. For a while-” Bucky cut himself off, and the bitterness in his voice was clear. “Let’s just say it took me a long time to find myself again, and nothing was quite the same when I did.”  
  
She stopped walking, forcing both boys to halt also, and tugged on their arms to make them face her. “I didn’t,” she hesitated, and then wrapped herself in a hug around Bucky. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”  
  
He was stiff in her arms, his own held straight on either side of her, as if he had no idea what to do, and she felt her heart hurt. Steve stepped closer, she felt him brush against her back as he put his hand on Bucky’s arm. Apparently that was all it took, and Bucky closed his arm around her, burying his head into her hair, shuddering. “There’s no way you could have known, kitten. Sometimes-” He cut himself off, took a deep breath. “Sometimes it all becomes a bit much.”

Darcy tilted her head up to press a kiss to his cheek. “You still have Steve. And now you have me. Between the three of us, I think we can create some new memories.”

“I’d like that.” Bucky squeezed her tightly, took a deep breath, and then let go of her. He glanced between Darcy and Steve, considering, then gave a small smile as he looped his arm through hers again. “Come on, I’m still starved.”

Darcy gave him a tentative smile, and took Steve’s arm with her free one as they started walking again. “You know, I haven’t been home in a while, but last time I went back to see Kevin -”  
  
“That’s your youngest brother, right?” Bucky interrupted her as they turned the corner.

“Yeah - he’s about five years older than I am. Anyway, last time I went home, it didn’t  _feel_  like home, you know? Things had just – changed. The old apartment complex we used to live in was condemned a couple of years ago, and Kev moved out of the apartment we lived in through high-school a while back. Hell, even the high-school’s had additions built.” She shook her head, the memories were bittersweet.

“The orphanage we grew up in moved while we were gone. The building was torn down and turned into housing complexes.” Steve said softly, and Darcy’s heart clenched. “I don’t miss living there, hell, I couldn’t wait to leave, but -” he trailed off.  
  
“But it was still home?” Darcy asked, voice equally soft. She hated that she had brought up a subject that brought them pain.

“Yeah.”  
  
“I just keep bringing up bad memories, don’t I?” Darcy asked, upset.   
  
“Darcy, no – the memories, well they’re still there, and walking around this area just brings them back. I suppose it’s healthier to talk about them rather than bottle them all up, noting what’s changed only in our heads. Besides,” he grinned, eyes distant.  “I remember when Bucky got us in trouble breaking a window with a foul ball. And the time-”

“ _I_  got us into trouble, punk? You were the one who-”

Darcy laughed, cutting Bucky of mid-rant. “Seems like you always get into trouble when you boys play ball.”

Bucky glanced down at her. “That had better be a general ‘you’ and not directed at me, kitten.”

“Oh, of course!” Darcy nudged him with her elbow, grinning, glad that he was more himself. “The point I was trying to make was that the place doesn’t make it home. It’s the people. If Kev didn’t live there, I probably wouldn’t go back. I’m surprised he hasn’t moved out, to be honest.”  
  
“Why’s that?” Steve asked, letting go of her arm to hold the diner’s door open for her and Bucky.

“He’s an audio engineer,” Darcy smiled as she walked in. “There aren’t many jobs in a defunct factory town for one of those.  He mainly does the sound for the shitty local bands that play in the bars. Besides, none of us really liked it there. I always felt like we were passing time.”

 She glanced around as Steve spoke with the hostess to get them a booth, and slid in next to him, with Bucky sitting across from them. “This place is great. I love diners.”

“You said that earlier, doll.” Steve stretched his arm out along the back of the booth. 

“Well, it’s true. I have fond memories of the diner down on Main Street. It looks a lot like this – big long main counter with stools, booths up against the windows. Tiny, but always crowded.” She smiled, thinking back. “We couldn’t eat out often, growing up – but for birthdays, special occasions, we’d go to the diner. Even though they always told me to get what I want, I knew that money was tight. People don’t think that little kids pick up on things, but I knew. Grant and Kevin would order some of the cheaper things on the menu, but they always got me a malt or a milkshake or  _something_  special. Typically I’d share my malt with them. It was always too big for me.”  Darcy smiled, glancing over her menu. “Eventually the staff knew us by name, and on my birthday the dessert of the day was always a blackberry cobbler. I found out later that Louise, our waitress, had figured out it was my favorite and they always made it then.”

  
“Well, that sounds like one thing to go back for.” Steve said, glancing up from perusing the menu.  
  
“But it’s like Bucky said earlier- it’s not the same. Louise moved to be near her daughter a few months after I went to college. The owner retired and it’s now run by his son – the menu changed. The malts are the same but the vibe is different. By the time Grant joined up, we would walk into the diner, to our usual booth, and Louise would drop off three glasses and a chocolate malt without us having to order. That won’t happen now.” 

“Becky used to do the same thing with us, remember Steve? She’d ask if we’d want the usual, and it was ready almost before we said ‘yes’. ” 

Steve grinned. “What I remember is when Becky hired Mary-Beth, and she always was always tripping over herself with you, giving you extra fries and mooning, while she ignored me.”

Darcy was about to interject when the waitress came over, and leaned over into Bucky’s seat. “What can I get you boys?”  
  
Steve smiled at her. “I’ll have the corned beef hash with eggs over medium, a pastrami on rye, and a chocolate egg cream.”  
  
“For you, honey?” The blonde purred at Bucky.

Bucky glanced from Darcy, who had an annoyed look on her face, to the waitress with raised brows. “The same, but with a Ruben sandwich instead of the pastrami.”  
  
“I’ll have that right out for you. You boys need  _anything_  and I’ll be right over.” The woman flipped her notebook closed and was turning to walk away when Darcy raised her voice. “Excuse me? I’d like to place my order.”  
  
“I’m sorry, hon, I thought your brother had ordered for you.” She had a patronizing smile on her face as she glanced down at Darcy.  
  
“He’s not my brother,” Darcy restrained herself from snapping at the woman. “I’d like a Ruben and a chocolate egg cream as well.” She held her tongue until the woman was out of hearing range.  
  
“Was it anything like that?” Darcy asked, jerking her thumb towards their retreating waitress.

“Was what like that?” Steve asked.  
  
“Mary-Beth, ignoring you. Like Blondie over here was ignoring me. Because I can see how that would be obnoxious. Hello, I was sitting right here. Just because I’m not six feet of male muscle doesn’t mean I don’t exist.” 

Steve laughed. “Yeah, that happened a lot. I was a lot shorter before I joined the army. Buck here always got the girls.”

“I don’t care how short you were, you can’t have changed that much. I’m sure you held your own. Thinking I was your sister, really. We look nothing alike!”

“It could have been worse, kitten.”  
  
She crossed her arms over her chest. “How?” 

Bucky opened his mouth, closed it. “I’ll think of something.”  
  
She smiled, reaching out to grab her glass of water. “You do that.”

 

  
Darcy's Poster from Grant, Translated by the lovely [usedkarma](usedkarma.tumblr.com) on tumblr

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait for this chapter. The holidays were a lot busier than planned, and I also signed up for the Steve/Darcy Holiday Fic Exchange. If you haven't read my entry, Phoradendron, check it out. The good news is the next chapter is already being beta'd right now, so there won't be such a long wait until the next one.
> 
> Special thanks this time to TheLadyScribe, who, besides being an awesome person all around, is pretty much an expert on all things Baseball, and has been a very wonderful adviser. 
> 
> LadySarah, you are still the world's best beta and Twin, who helps me get my thoughts out onto paper, and then beats said words into shape. Thanks for helping me out and making my writing so much better.
> 
> Merideath and Katertots, the love, help, support, and hand holding when I'm trying to figure things out is priceless.

Darcy was _not_ having a good morning. Some idiot was pounding on a door somewhere in the hall, and even two pillows piled on top of her head couldn’t keep the noise out.  
  
“Ben! Open up!”

She could hear the yelling even through two walls and two closed doors. She burrowed further into her pillow. “How hard is it to just sleep in on a weekend?”

The pillow, unfortunately, declined to answer. 

“C’me on, buddy! We’re gonna be late!” The voice in the hall was loud enough to penetrate even through the pillow.  
  
“That’s it!” She grabbed her robe, which had started life as Kevin’s until she decided it was hers, and stormed to the front door.

“Dude. Some of us are sleeping.” She informed the dishwater-blonde haired man who was _still_ knocking on her neighbor’s door.

“Oh, hey. I’m sorry,” he turned to her. “I didn’t mean to wake -”

The door opened behind him, and a scruffy-looking man with dark brown hair was shoving a shirt over his head as he attempted to carry an equipment bag and lock his door, all at the same time.

“Matt - sorry, sorry. I forgot to set my alarm. Why the hell are tryouts at 9 am on a Sunday?”

Darcy suddenly felt more alert. The possibility of baseball always caught her attention. “Did you say tryouts?”

Ben, or Darcy assumed he was Ben, considering that his friend had been screaming that name for what felt like all morning, turned and stared at her. “Well hello, beautiful.”

She held up her hand, a look of dismissal on her face. “Just - no. No. Are these tryouts for a recreational league baseball team?”

“Yeah - there’s about 30 teams in the metro area that play. Why? You a fan?”  
  
“No, I want to try out.”  
  
He laughed derisively. “This isn’t softball.”  
  
His friend elbowed him in the stomach. “Ben - chill. She’s the chick who was playing with Steve and James the other day.”  
  
“Wait, what? That was her?” Her neighbor started, and glanced from her to his friend and back.  
  
The dishwater blonde sighed and smiled at her. “Hi, I’m Matt. This is Ben. If you want to get changed and grab some gear real quick, you can come with us. One of the fields in the park was reserved for this. We’d love to have you on the team.”  
  
She smiled at him, suddenly wide awake. “I’m Darcy. Give me five minutes, max. Thanks!” She rushed into her apartment to change and grab her gear, thankful that this, at least, had been unpacked. She threw on a sports bra, t-shirt, and her practice pants. Shoved her feet into socks and a pair of sandals, slapped her contacts in, and grabbed her gear.

She had her ball-cap in her mouth as she locked the door and turned to see both boys staring at her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl get ready that fast.” Matt said.

She looped the cap over her wrist as she put her keys away. “Thanks, I think? So have you played on this team before? What’s the league like?” Darcy asked, braiding her hair as they walked down the stairs.

“The league is great, and this’ll be the second year that we’re on the team.” Matt smiled. “We went to the finals last year, but lost to a team in the Bronx.”  
  
She glanced over at them. “Bet that burned.”  
  
Ben grinned. “You have no idea. Coach wants to win the whole thing this year.”

“What’s he like?” Darcy asked, shoving her cap on her head.

“A real hard-ass,” Ben said as he opened the door, then caught sight of her hat, and his eyebrows practically disappeared into his hairline. “Oh, this should be fun.”

“What?”

“You’re wearing a Sox cap in New York.” Matt stated.

Darcy raised her brows at both of them in challenge. “So? I grew up at Fenway.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”  
  
“I can take care of myself, thanks,” she said, rolling her eyes as they crossed into the park. “What positions do you play?”

“Third baseman,” Matt said, grinning. “Ben’s on Second. You?”  
  
“Shortstop,” She smiled at them. “Guess I’ll be spending time with you on the field.”  
  
“If coach puts you on the roster. When was the last time you played?” Ben challenged as they approached a baseball diamond that was full of men warming up to play.

“Last weekend -”

“BAYLOR! SULLIVAN!” A booming voice startled all three of them. “Stop trying to get a date and get your asses on the field!”  
  
Darcy nodded to the short stocky man who was currently glaring at them. “I take it he’s the coach?”  
  
“Yup, Coach Durkee,” Ben informed her, before yelling back. “Brought you some fresh blood, sir!”

“You brought me a Sox fan, son. She’d better be good,” Coach growled to Ben before turning to Darcy. “What’s your name girl, what position do you think you play, and what’s your previous experience?”

“Darcy Lewis, Short Stop, and practically all my life? I played Varsity in High School all four years, then -”

He made a noncommittal noise and interrupted her. “Not in college?”

“Intra mural -”  
  
“Couldn’t make it on the D1 teams?” He raised a brow at her.

“Well, they wouldn’t give a girl a baseball scholarship, and I don’t like softball.” Darcy was getting more than a little annoyed at being constantly interrupted, but held her tongue.

He hummed, glanced down at her, took in the faded ARMY shirt and broken in baseball pants. “Boyfriend’s shirt?”

“My brother’s.”

“He serve? ”

She didn’t move a muscle as she stared right back at him. “With Third Ranger Battalion, yes.”

He hummed, his face blank, giving none of his thoughts away. “Go warm up, we’ll see what you’ve got.” With that, Coach Durkee turned and walked over to home base to shout some pointers to some of the catchers.

“That went well,” Darcy muttered, before walking over to a tree on the edge of the field to put her cleats on.

___

Darcy had just tied the laces on her cleats and was walking onto the field when she heard someone shout her name.

“Darcy!”  
  
She turned to see Steve and Bucky approaching her, both in athletic clothes, and narrowed her eyes at them. They had very obviously had prior notice of tryouts. “Why didn’t you tell me they were holding tryouts?”  
  
“Well, we didn’t exactly want to tryout ourselves.” Steve rubbed his hand along the back of his neck.

Darcy crossed her arms over her chest, nonplussed. “If you don’t want to try out, then why are you here?”  
  
“Lost a bet.” Bucky muttered, tossing a ball up and down.

She grinned at them. “Oh, this I gotta hear.”

“‘S not worth telling, Kitten.” Bucky said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and steering her towards the pitcher’s mound.

She glanced up at him from under the brim of her cap. “Um, you’re both avoiding the question, so yes, yes it is.”

Steve, carrying his catcher’s mask and glove, sighed and started explaining. “We play pickup games all the time, and certain people-”  
  
“Like the jackanapes you walked over with,” Bucky interrupted.

Steve gave Bucky an unimpressed look as Darcy hid her smile, and continued. “Certain people have stated their opinion that we ‘stop fooling around with the game’ and that we ‘step up and actually compete’.  There may or may not have been some language about pride in our borough, and trash talking the Bronx. And Queens. And Bucky’s manhood.” Steve paused, eyes mischievous and smirking slightly at Bucky’s outraged choking. “Mine of course is never in question.  We don’t exactly have stable schedules, so we haven’t wanted to join a team where we couldn’t be sure we could make even most of the games -”  
  
“That and you’re too damn noble,” Bucky muttered under his breath, and it was only because of how close Darcy was that she was able to hear.

Steve, who hadn’t heard the comment, continued on. “So while we were watching the Mets vs Dodgers and getting a slice earlier this week, we ran into Matt and Ben.”

“They planned it, Steve.” Bucky protested.  
  
“I doubt that. They don’t know you well enough to know you’d run your mouth, Buck.”  
  
Darcy was still grinning as she stole Bucky’s ball. “Why am I not surprised that Bucky is the epicenter of all this? Isn’t that how you normally get into scrapes?”

“I resent that remark.” Bucky snatched the ball back, eyes narrowed at her.

“ROGERS! BARNES! LEWIS! Asses on the field, now!” All three started at the bellow, and then Darcy sighed, thinking that she’d have to get the story out of them later as they started to jog over to start tryouts.

_____

“Okay, Peaches, listen up!” Coach Durkee bellowed to the group assembled on the field. “The roster will be as follows - keep in mind that this is preliminary and _will not_ be final until we have final acceptance from each player and receipt of all forms and dues in one week. You don’t pay the club fees, you don’t play. Got it?” He waited until he got murmurs of understanding before continuing.

“Starting players: Barnes, Baylor, Bernsdorff, Genovese, Lewis, Lowe, Meyer, Rogers, Shreve. Reserve and designated hitters: Connolly, Dennings, Evans, Elliott, Furtado, Gempsis, Manoso, Navarro, O’Connor, Portman, Ruddy, Scott, Sullivan. If you didn’t make the cut, show up in a week. Some of these clowns might drop. All you boys and girl keep in mind not everyone can make every game. If you miss more than two without a damn good reason, I’ll take it out of your hide. Those of you who made the team: congratulations - I’ll see you on Tuesday for practice. Plan on grabbing a slice after to get to know each other after, otherwise, have a good night.”

Darcy could barely contain her excitement until coach had finished talking, and let out a loud whoop of excitement that had most of the people around her chuckling. Most everyone who had come out had made the team, but there were some who left disappointed. Those who remained and made the cut stood around, congratulating and laughing as they collected their gear and dispersed.

Matt joined Darcy as she, Bucky and Steve were making their way over to the edge of the field to collect their gear.

“Congrats on making the team guys,” Matt blanched at the look Darcy gave him. “And girl. Do you mind if I say guys and not girl?”

Darcy just raised her brows at him as she plopped down on the ground next to Ben, who had an ice pack on his head, and began unlacing her cleats. “Not really. Though if I have to put up with any locker-room talk, I won’t be happy.”

“You don’t have to worry about it with Matt,” Ben said, drawing the groups attention as he worked his own cleats off one handed. “He’s pretty discrete. Now, Drew Meyer, our Center Fielder, on the other hand - last season I knew everything about his girlfriend, from her bra size to childhood fears. He shares _everything_. Just tell him to shut up, and you’ll be good.” He glanced up to see them all staring at him. “What? IT’s true -”

“Are you crying?” There was a note of disbelief in Matt’s voice.

“No, Matt, I just got hit in the face with a baseball, so my eye is watering.” Ben gave Matt a pithy look as Darcy bent to gather her gear.

“You’re crying because you made the team.” Matt continued to give Ben hell, as Steve, Darcy and Bucky traded amused looks.  
  
“Buck up Sullivan,” Darcy grinned, shouldering her bag.

“Don’t say it -”

“There’s no crying in baseball.” She laughed at the look on his face and turned to walk over to Steve and Bucky.

“Dude, I’m not crying!” 

Darcy was still laughing as she joined the boys. “Man, now I want to watch ‘A League of Their Own’. Shame, really. It’s such a good movie. Ah well, wanna get dinner boys?”

Steve, reaching over to take her bag, glanced at her quizzically. “Sounds good. I’m starved. Why can’t you watch your movie though?”  
  
“You do remember my plush pad, right? The complete lack of a television kind of makes watching movies almost impossible. And I’d watch it on my computer if my internet were, you know, actually working. Remind me to call Time-Warner when I get home, would you?”  
  
Steve glanced at Bucky, contemplating. “You could come watch it at our place.”

“Are you sure?” Darcy looked between them both.

“It’ll be fine,” Bucky wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “We weren’t planning on doing much today anyway. We’re not on rotation again until Tuesday.  We could get delivery from the Thai place and watch it.”  
  
“Sounds good,” Darcy said, then caught a whiff of herself, and made a face. “Let me go home and shower up first - I’m all gross.”  
  
“Well, since you’re bringing it up,” Steve started.

 “Nuh-uh, Steve-o,” Darcy punched his shoulder. “Don’t start - you don’t exactly smell like roses yourself. We should _all_ shower.” Darcy paused. “Separately, Barnes.”

 “I’m shocked and offended that you felt the need to clarify, Kitten,” Bucky grinned. “Why would you even think -”

“Because she knows you, Jerk?” Steve reached over Darcy to smack Bucky upside the head, but he dodged, keeping Darcy as a barrier between them.

“And on that note, I’m going to go shower.” Darcy wiggled out between the two tussling man-boys, taking her bag from Steve, and started up the front walk to her building.

“Hey Darcy,” Bucky called to her, smirking as Steve stood grinning next to him on the sidewalk. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Darcy checked to see that she had all her gear, and then looked back at them, perplexed. “No. What’d I forget?”  
  
“To get our address?”

“Oh. Right. That would make life easier.” Darcy blushed and dug out her phone. “What is it again?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to LadySarah (nourgelitnius on tumblr) for being the world's best Beta. She had a lot to deal with on this chapter, as I really enjoy historic buildings, and she helped tone down the extreme level of detail originally in this and made it more reader-friendly. So Kudos to you, Twinny!
> 
> Also a great deal of thanks to Merideath (Typhoidmeri) and Katertots (Dopemixtape) for helping sort out my headcanon. It's really appreciated.
> 
> Thanks to my readers for the lovely reviews and kudos. They really make my day when I receive them.

Darcy, wearing a T-shirt and broken in jeans and a pair of battered old Converses with  her wet hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head, hesitated, double checking the address on her phone before stepping off the tree-lined sidewalk and walking up the L-shaped front steps to ring the bell on the Brownstone. When they had told her they were roommates, she thought they shared an apartment. Not a three story _townhouse_ with bay windows.

One of the double glass wood carved doors opened, and Steve, obviously fresh from a shower, was standing there in a grey Henley and worn jeans with a smile on his face. “Come on in, Doll, and we can get that food ordered.” 

“I didn’t realize you guys had a house.” Darcy said, following Steve through the entryway and a second, dark wood stained glass door. “And a gorgeous one at that,” she said, staring at the dark walnut staircase with the intricately carved newel post and decorative balustrades that graced the right side of the main hall. She admired the newel post lamp, a bronze nouveau woman, her flimsy dress clinging to reveal her figure, holding a large flower over her head in her right hand from which the light protruded. She was leaning on an oval floral wreath, which held a mirror, ornamented with intricately cast flowers and leaves, with a particularly large bloom at her feet.

“Buck and I didn’t intend to get a house, we kinda fell into it,” Steve grinned. “But we like it.”

She spun to get a look at the matching walnut moulding on the ceilings - they had to be at least 14 feet tall. “Is this all original?”

“Yeah,” Steve rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets as he observed her. “We’ve had to patch some new wood in where the original couldn’t be salvaged, but it’s at least 90% original.”

“Wow. Wait. You did the work on the house?” Darcy stopped her perusal of the house to look at Steve again.

Steve rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand, and Darcy restrained herself from staring at the play of muscles on display for her and tried to concentrate on his words instead. “We’re renovating it. We bought it several months ago for a song, but it was in pretty bad shape. Some chump had decided to paint the woodwork, carpet everything, the electrical wires were...” Steve trailed off, sighing. “Well, let’s just say she needs some love.”

“The house is a she?” Darcy asked, amused.

“She is - and she’s a grand old lady. Built in 1868, she’s a Renaissance Revival style brownstone. We’re mostly done with renovating this floor, but we’ve got the second livable. And the third - well, it’s a construction zone.” Steve turned to walk through the delicately carved wood cased opening into the family room. “Anyway, let’s get you settled and order food.”

Darcy followed him, glancing curiously around the room. They hadn’t put down a rug so as to show off the white oak floor inlaid with mahogany. There was a waist high double sided wood cabinet as she first walked in, with clean lines and a similar finish to the floor. A carved marble fireplace was on the opposite wall with a large antique mirror in an intricate gold leaf frame above it. The fireplace was flanked by oversized tan couches, a low coffee table between them, and two deep blue plush chairs were angled in the bay window to her left, its frame the same dark wood as the moulding. Opposite the bay windows were a closed set of dark wood pocket doors set into a carved walnut frame with an ornate stained glass window above. The ceiling was beautifully ornamented.

“I’m going to repeat myself. Wow. Where’s Bucky?”

“Still showering. He should be down soon.” Steve collapsed onto one of the couches, and Darcy joined him, putting her bag next to her.

She turned to face him. “Still? Does he always take long showers?”

No, I took the first one. We only have one full bath finished right now. In fact, this floor is the only one that’s pretty much done.”

“We’d have two done if you could just settle on your fixtures, Punk.” Bucky remarked as he leaned against the doorway, hair damp, wearing a long sleeved black t-shirt and dark wash denim.

“I haven’t found the right claw-foot tub yet, jerk.”

Bucky just raised his brows. “It’s a tub. Pick one.”

Darcy looked between the two, “Have you tried the architectural salvage stores?”

“He’s drug me into every one in Brooklyn and _still_ hasn’t found a tub that speaks to him. We were able to find other things that we did need, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.” Bucky straightened, pulling out his phone as he walked over to lean on the couch opposite them. “Anyway, I’m starved. What did you want from the Thai place, Kitten?”

“Coconut yellow curry with tofu and an order of sticky rice.”

“Tofu?” Bucky asked, wrinkling his nose as he dialed the restaurant.

“Yes, tofu. It complements the curry. I also like it, so deal.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, opening his mouth to respond when the restaurant answered. He turned and walked over to the windows, calling out to see if Steve wanted his usual before placing their order.

“This is a beautiful room, Steve. Very comfy. I have only one burning question,” Darcy began.

“And what’s that, doll?”

“Where’s the television?” Steve looked startled, before smiling and walking over to the cabinet.

“We didn’t like the idea of the television being the focal point, so we hid it,” he explained as he opened one of the doors and pressed a button. Part of the top of the console retracted and a large flat screen television and two skinny speakers on either side of it started rising from the furniture.

“That is so totally awesome! Did you guys build this?”

Bucky, done with ordering food, answered. “We didn’t. Tony, the friend who forgets to eat, just showed up with this one day. I think he was annoyed that we won’t let him help work on the house, and this is his way of contributing despite that. Well, we did let him help us do some rewiring.”

Darcy glanced at Bucky. “Why won’t you let him help? Wouldn’t that make it go faster?”

He snorted. “Tony’s - he’s just Tony. I shudder to think what would happen if we let him help renovate. When we had him help us rewire and install the newel post lamp he decided to ‘fix’ our door-bell. Never mind that it already worked, he just wanted to make it play _The Battle Hymn of the Republic_ for some god-forsaken reason.” Bucky rolled his eyes as Darcy laughed. “It took us hours to figure out how disconnect it and reinstall the old chime once we realized what he’d done. We also just _like_ doing the work ourselves. It’s relaxing to strip wood, and work with my hands.”

Steve interjected. “I agree with Bucky. It’s just not the same. Though we did wind up calling professional help on the plumbing. It’s the one thing we can’t do ourselves.”

“I take it you learned this the hard way?” Darcy asked. Their expressions answered for them - a look of mingled embarrassment and consternation. Darcy laughed, picturing in her head the two of them standing ankle deep in water wondering what they’d done wrong. “Anyway, I take it the rest of the electronics are in the console?”

Darcy walked over to stand by Steve, watching as he smiled and opened the two center doors, revealing their entertainment systems. “Do you have a gaming system or Netflix? I brought my laptop just in case we need to hook it up instead. I wasn’t sure what your setup was.”

“Um, yeah.  The gaudy red and gold thing is a gaming system.”

Darcy knelt to get into the console and looked at the device in question. “Did you customize your Xbox or something - Oh my god is that an IronGamer? I’d only heard rumors that Stark was developing one of these. It’s supposed to play games from any platform!”

Steve and Bucky just stared at her for a moment, before Steve answered. “A friend of ours gave it to us. We’re beta-testing, apparently. I take it you enjoy video games?”

Bucky snorted as Darcy cleared her throat. “Yes. I do. I’m sort of a huge nerd. Anyway, I’ll go ahead and get Netflix set up.” She reached to turn the system on.

“If you don’t own your own TV, why do you have a Netflix account?”

Darcy turned to Steve and grinned. “I don’t - it’s my brother’s. And he never, ever changes his password on _anything_. You should have been there for the Great Facebook Incident. Kevin and I had _way_ too much fun.”

The screen loaded. “Besides, I don’t think he’s used it in a while, considering that I have yet to get an angry phone call about that.” She gestured with the controller to the screen, where it was asking to choose the user: “ANT MAN!” OR “HRH Queen of the Lab”. 

Bucky started laughing. “Ant man?”

Darcy sat back down on the couch, searching for ‘A League of Their Own’ in the film queue. “I couldn’t pronounce ‘Grant’ when I was little. So he was ‘Ant’. Drives him _nuts_ when I use it.”

“You use it all the time, don’t you?” Steve shook his head as he sat down beside her.

“No - I save it for special occasions. Which are always with an audience. It makes it that much more fun.”

“Remind me to stay on your good side,” Bucky remarked, sitting next to Steve. “Now - do we want to wait for the food to arrive or do you want to start the film now?”

“Can we wait for food?” Darcy asked, glancing around eagerly. “I’d kinda like to see the rest of the place, if you don’t mind giving a tour.”

Steve stood up, turning to help pull Darcy off the couch as he responded. “Don’t mind at all. Just be careful when we go to the less finished areas.”

“At least you’re wearing closed toed shoes,” Bucky remarked, getting up off the couch and opening the doors at the end of the room. “Tony’s girl came over to look wearing sandals when she brought that mirror over. Damn near gave herself tetanus, and he panicked.”

“So, this is obviously our living room,” Steve swept his arms around the room, and then proceeded into the next room. “This is the formal dining room. Not that we use it.”

Darcy followed and couldn’t help but remark upon the furniture. “I love the table. Going for cafeteria chic?”

Bucky grinned at her, looking at the plastic folding table and chairs that were in the middle of the room. “Nah, just can’t find one we both agree on.”

“Well, beyond the furniture, this room is a masterpiece.” Darcy observed the room, taking in the large crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of a ceiling that was just as detailed as it had been in the living room. There were more plaster detail work on the edges of the ceiling.  The walls were painted a deep burgundy that really allowed the chair rail and the gilt and cream decorative plasterwork to pop. “The Chandelier is especially magnificent.”

“We actually found that in a closet whose door had been plastered over at some point on the garden level,” Bucky mused, watching her. “It was missing a good third of the crystals, but we were able to find some replacements. It just took time and a lot of elbow grease to get back into shape.”

“Well, it was certainly worth it. Is it original?”

“No. It actually pre-dates the construction of the house. We’ve been going more for what we like than perfect restoration.”

“That makes sense. Personally, I’m a huge fan of a lot of advancements that have been made since the 19th Century. Like electricity instead of gas lights. And showers.” Darcy moved through the room, inspecting the two handsomely carved folding wood doors that were able to recess into the sides of the door trim. The opening cut through what was obviously the original back wall of the townhome, based on how thick the wall was. “Did these used to be windows?”

“We think so,” Steve answered. “Someone had already added on to the house-”

“Badly.” Bucky interjected.

Steve ignored him and continued. “We just dressed it up. Kitchen’s through the doors.”

Darcy pushed the doors into their recess, then stopped and stared.

The kitchen was bright and airy, with cheerful butter yellow walls. They had left exposed, or exposed themselves, the brick of the home’s original back wall. There was an L-shaped bench seat with blue cushions built in to the left corner of the room, with a large picture window above it. A rectangular butcher-block table with carved white legs and two white chairs were in front the bench seat. To the right of the window was a glass door. The pale cream granite counters started to the right of that, with a porcelain farmhouse sink centered under a window that was flanked by white cabinets with glass fronts. The backsplash was white subway tile with an embossed vintage tile border at the top. A bar with two stools tucked underneath separated the area between the dining area and the kitchen proper. The range was centered on the far right wall, with a refrigerator in the corner. Between the fridge and the bar counter was an open door that looked like it had also started life as a window.

“Can I keep it?” Darcy whispered.

Steve just stared while Bucky started laughing. “If you can take it home, sure. You can have the kitchen.”

“Buck - no,” Steve protested, exasperated. “Just - Darcy, you can come over and _use_ our kitchen. I doubt the one in your apartment is up to much.” Steve gently pushed Darcy out of the doorway and further into the room. “I take it you like to cook?”

“Love it. And baking. You have an eight burner Viking range with double ovens.” She practically moaned, running her hand over the top of the range. “I’m cooking you dinner next weekend, just to try this baby out.”

“No tofu,” Bucky requested.

Darcy ignored him, walking around the room, and poking her head in the open door. “You have a pantry? How the hell did you manage that?”

“We got creative with space,” Steve shrugged. “It’s not that big, but it works for us.”

Darcy walked back over to where Steve stood by the table. “Seriously, I’m having major kitchen envy right now. This is now my dream kitchen.” Darcy trailed off as she looked out the glass door, seeing nothing but a not-insignificant drop to the neglected looking back yard. “It’s a door to no-where.” She turned to look at Bucky and Steve. “Why is it a door to no-where?”

Bucky sighed. “Because the deck and stairs started collapsing when Steve walked out onto it the day we got the keys to the place. It had completely rotted.”

“Replacing it is on our list of things to do, but we have higher priority items.”

“Like a second bathroom?” Darcy grinned.

Steve nodded. “That, and finishing the bedrooms. Come on,” he said, turning and walking back into the dining room. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Darcy followed Steve and Bucky through another carved wooden opening into the main hall.

“Guest bath is right there,” Bucky pointed to the door at the end of the main hall.

Darcy opened the door, taking in dark wood vanity sink with a matching medicine cabinet above it. Two sconces flanked the medicine cabinet. The walls were painted a pale blue, with white subway tile going halfway up. The floor was black and white hexagonal shaped penny tile. “Pretty.”

Steve smiled while Bucky shook his head. “You should have seen it before. It was one of the most disgusting spaces I’d ever seen. Used to be a full bath - all pink, too. Pink tile walls and floor, pink sink, pink toilet, pink bath.” 

“Not a pink person?” Darcy asked, amused.  “Considering how much you both loved the pink roses on my boots, I’m shocked.”

“Oh - it wasn’t the color that made it disgusting,” Steve continued for Bucky. “It had been left to rot with what looked like primordial sludge growing in the tub and expanding out to the rest of the room. If it weren’t for the fact that everything was pink, in some parts, you’d have had a hard time telling what color it was originally.”

Bucky shook his head. “It took forever to gut the room, and we wore face masks the entire time.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have before photos, would you? Because you could make a killer blog about the renovation.”

“Um, no. We sort of just dove in with sledge hammers.”

“Darn.” Darcy turned around, noticing the door under the stairs. “Is that to the - what did you call it? The Garden level?”

“Yeah. We won’t go down there now - it’s mainly just weights and punching bag and the laundry machines. We’ve not done much, except take down the existing kitchen. Let’s go up.” Steve led the way up the stairs with Darcy following and Bucky bringing up the rear. The stairs curved sharply to the left at the top, and once she made it to the hallway, Darcy took in the significant differences between this floor and the last.

The banister was finished from the first floor up to the second, but once it turned into the straight rail along the main hall it was still in progress. The wood was stripped along the second floor, but she could see the multiple layers of paint being removed on the railing that curved going up to the third. The hall floors had been sanded, the original wood exposed, but hadn’t been refinished in the hall yet, and the back part of the floor was mostly just exposed stud wall with dried plaster leaking through the old boards. The fireplace on the far end of the side wall, visible through the hallway’s stud wall, was in remarkably good shape, if incredibly dirty, with the remnants of a flocked pink paisley and gold foil wallpaper clinging to the wall above it. There was a door towards the front of the house  that matched the ones downstairs, but the trim was painted an almost violent shade of violet, and the door was also in the process of being sanded down to remove the same paint.

“Okay. I think I understand what you mean by the fact that this floor is livable but not finished,” Darcy said, mildly. “How the hell is the first floor in such good shape, and this floor, well, isn’t?”

“This floor, and the one above it, needed more work than the main floor. The roof was damaged and leaking. The entire third floor has to be scrapped and we’ll renovate that from the studs out. The fact that someone was stupid enough to put linoleum over the hardwood floors up there is the only reason the entire house isn’t a ruin - it limited most of the water damage. The floor is still sound, and we added a few sister trusses to stabilize areas we were a little concerned about, but for the most part, that was the culprit.”

“Well, that and the fact that they’d put in drop ceilings and fluorescent lights on the first floor,” Bucky mused. “It’s what probably what allowed that plasterwork to survive.”

“This is quite a project,” Darcy mused, walking to open the partially purple door. “Whoa. Okay, you guys are totally up for it then,” she breathed. The room at the front of the house was completely finished. The plasterwork had been repaired, and was painted a deep blue. The ceiling was flat, with recessed lights installed, though they had incorporated a vintage push button style switch. Instead of attempting to recreate the damaged plaster that was still visible in other parts of the floor, they had instead installed a wood crown molding and base, stained to match the rest of the home.  The marble fireplace had been cleaned and polished, and the woodwork around the bay window had been restored to its former glory. There was a large bed with a dark wood carved headboard and a plain cream comforter  centered on the wall with the door, and they’d put a sad looking twin bed across from it between the fireplace and the bay window. 

“I take it you share the space until you finish the second bedroom?” She asked.

“It’s not so bad - we lived in apartment the size of this room before joining up,” Steve replied.

“And don’t get me started on space sharing in the Army,” Bucky muttered, stepping out of Darcy’s way as she investigated the room. “Besides, it shouldn’t take us long to do the back bedroom.”

“How long did it take you to do this one?” Darcy asked, glancing over her shoulder as she opened the door on the opposite side of the big bed.

“Counting the bathroom or not?” Steve asked, grinning.

“Not counting it, I guess?” She inspected what was behind the door.

“About a month -we were busy with work a lot, and weren’t home as often as we’d have liked. We probably could have hammered it out in less time had we not been interrupted.”

The door led to the bathroom. The walls were a lovely sage green, and the dark wood trim had been continued along the ceiling here. Directly across from the door was a metal vanity, with a black enamel finish, chrome bin pulls on the drawers that were on either side, exposed hinges, and a marble vanity top. A medicine cabinet was above it, with two simple sconces on either side. To the left, in the corner, was a large glass enclosed two-headed shower, with white subway tile. The toilet was immediately to the left of the door, and the window was centered on the exterior wall.

Darcy walked back out of the bathroom, hands on her hips. “Question.”

“Yes?” Steve asked from where he was sitting on the bed, watching her.

“Are you both just exhibitionists, or did you forget to add a curtain to the seven foot window in the bathroom?”

Bucky just grinned as Steve chuckled and explained. “We replaced all the windows in this room with one-way glass, doll. We didn’t want to add curtains and restrict light, but we also wanted privacy. It was a good way to do it.”

“Ah. Okay then. Onwards we go!” Darcy exclaimed, skipping out of the room and up to the third floor. The railing changed colors four times before she got to the top floor, the last part being a rather subdued shade of mustard that somehow reminded her of her new couch. The third floor was barren. The remains of studs and dripping dried plaster were intermittent on the exposed brick of the exterior walls. There were water stains on the wood floors, which still had the remains of the adhesive from the laminate.

“This is kind of a depressing space,” Darcy mentioned. “But it has such great possibility. Do you know what you’re going to do up here?”

“Not really.”  Steve replied. “Been concentrating on the second floor recently.”

“Come on, Kitten.” Bucky put his hand on her back to guide her back to the stairs. “Let’s head back down. The food should be here soon.”

The doorbell chimed as they were walking back down the stairs. “Excellent timing,” Darcy remarked as Steve jumped the last 4 steps and went to open the door. “Mmm.... curry. I’d say let’s eat on the back deck but-”

“It doesn’t exist?” Bucky grinned as he interrupted her.

“Yeah. We need to fix that.”

“We?” Steve asked as he walked over to them, takeout bags in hand. “You’re volunteering to help?”

“I’m pretty good with a wrench and hammer. Besides, many hands make light work and all that. But only if you want it. I don’t want to be a nuisance-”

“Kitten, we wouldn’t hesitate to let you know if you were,” Bucky interrupted her before walking into the kitchen to grab flatware.

Steve and Darcy settled on the couch and started doling out the take out containers, handing Bucky his as they settled back to watch the film.

______

"I think you should do that at our first game, punk,” Bucky chortled as on the screen, Dottie Henderson caught the ball while doing a split

Steve tossed his crumpled up napkin at him protesting loudly, while Darcy grinned and spoke over him. “You’re only protesting because your legs won’t look as good Gina Davis’s in a skirt. I on the other hand, could totally pull that off. I just wouldn’t be able to walk afterwards.”

“How do you know that I can’t?” Steve batted his eyes at both of them, as Darcy collapsed back onto Bucky laughing. “Besides,” he said, grinning. “This is bullshit. They wouldn’t have needed to do stunts like this to get crowds. The women’s league was very popular during the war.”

“Shh,” Darcy reared up to put both hands over Steve’s mouth. “Stop spoiling the movie magic. Haven’t you learned yet that historical accuracy doesn’t translate in film?”

Steve just narrowed his eyes at her and licked her fingers.

“Eww, childish Rogers,” Darcy removed her hands and wiped them on her pants.

“Shouldn’t have put your hands on my face then,” Steve said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her into his side.

“Quiet, both of you,” Bucky reprimanded, smirking at them.

“You started it!” Darcy protested.

“Shh.” He countered.

Darcy sighed and curled back into Steve’s embrace, becoming absorbed in the Rockford Peaches once more.

______

The credits were rolling when Darcy finally decided to move. They’d stretched out onto the couch after eating, and Darcy was curled up against Bucky’s side, with her feet stretched out into Steve’s lap.

“Where are you going, doll?” Steve asked softly, relaxed.

“I’m getting my mango sticky rice,” she replied, leaning over the coffee table to snag the container and the spoon she’d left out earlier. She settled back on the couch, legs crossed, humming happily as she opened her dessert.

“Can I try that?” Bucky asked leaning over her shoulder, spoon in hand.

She swatted it. “No. I know you. You asked to try my pie last night, and wound up eating half of it. I still don’t know how you had room for it and your own slice. You’d had the equivalent of two meals. Do you have multiple stomachs?”

“We’d moved your couch for you. Took a lot of calories.”

Darcy gave him an arch look. “Right,” she let the word drag out in disbelief. “Not buying it. You don’t want to try it, you want to eat it. You should have ordered your own.”

Bucky pouted. “But I don’t know if I like it.”

Darcy was grinning, about to reply, when Steve spoke beside her. “I know I do.”

Darcy turned to him, only to see him dip his spoon into her desert for apparently the second time. “Hey!” She hugged it close to her chest, standing up and moving to the other couch. “Hands off the dessert.” Bucky and Steve stared at her as she proceeded to eat her desert, with increasingly pathetic looks on their faces.

She had to admit, it was starting to get to her. Just as she was about to give in and let them have the rest of it, her phone started blaring _Black Betty_.

“I have to take this – it’s Grant,” Darcy put her bowl on the coffee table and grabbing her phone.

“You aren’t going finish your dessert first?” Steve asked, eyeing it. Bucky had an innocent look on his face as he studiously ignored her dessert that she didn’t trust at all.

Darcy sighed, glancing at her phone. “There’s a distinct possibility he’ll call out the National Guard if I miss my scheduled phone call.”

Bucky started to laugh, and then stopped when he noticed that Darcy wasn’t even smiling. “Seriously?”

She shrugged. “We’re talking about the man who ran a background check on my prom date - a guy who he’d taught how to pitch and that he’d taken trick or treating with me since kindergarten. Yeah, he’d call out the freaking Avengers if he thought I was in trouble.”

Darcy answered her phone, pushing open the doors to walk through the dining room into kitchen for some privacy. “Hi Grant! Guess who just made starting player?”

They could make out a deeper voice on the other end of the phone, and were turning back to steal her dessert when Darcy’s head popped back into the room, her phone pressed to her chest.

“Touch my sticky rice and die, Rogers!”

She put the phone back up to her ear and started talking to her brother again as she disappeared back into the other room. “No, it’s not a threat, and after attempting to steal my pie earlier, they should know better. They’re friends of mine who also made the team today.”

Her voice trailed off as she got further away, and Bucky grinned at Steve as he brought Darcy’s container of sticky rice in front of him.

“We just got a death threat about that, Jerk.” Steve stated, face neutral, but eyes glinting.

“No, you did. She didn’t say anything about me,” Bucky said around a mouth full of stolen dessert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like any of my head-canon regarding the house, feel free to send me an Ask on tumblr. I'm lady-cheeky there.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to LadySarah for beta'ing this chapter. It's been a long road getting this one out, and it fought me most of the time.

Darcy drug herself into work on Wednesday and collapsed, groaning, into her chair. “I’m not moving from here for at least an hour. If you need me to go grab anything, it’ll be a bit.”

Jane stared at her supine form, and got up to lean against Darcy’s desk, cradling her mug of coffee in her hands. “You look like something the cat, if I had one, would drag in.”

“I feel like I was run over by a truck, and then tied to it and made to run behind it for miles, abandoned in a ditch, and _then_ a cat found me and drug me here,” Darcy whined, eyes closed. She opened them to look back at a Jane. “Remind me why I thought it was a good idea to join a serious baseball team? I haven’t done anything but pick-up games since I started working with you, and that was over a year ago.”

“You told me on Monday that it’s because it’s the best sport ever and you love it.”

“I might love the game, but God practice _hurts_! We did _suicides_ Jane. Running and more running and sprinting and...Hell. Yes, it’s great that I was able to make starting player on the team, but everything hurts. _Everything,_ Jane. I’m so out of shape!”

  
Jane patted her head consolingly. “It can’t be all that bad. You just aren’t used to this much activity anymore.”

Darcy just glared at Jane. “You’re one to talk. When was the last time you did anything?”

Jane just smiled serenely as she sipped her coffee. “Doesn’t matter. _I_ didn’t sign up to play with the - what, the Brooklyn Devils?”

Darcy harrumphed. “The Red Legged Devils. Named after some Brooklyn regiment that fought in the Civil War. Anyway - I seriously need to go buy a new sports bra. You’d think that with how expensive they were that they’d hold up better.”

Jane glanced down at herself, then back over to Darcy. “I honestly wouldn’t know,” she remarked primly. “I don’t play sports.”

“I’d noticed,” Darcy smiled reluctantly. “Wanna go shopping with me this afternoon? I need a new bra before practice tomorrow, you need to be someplace that’s not the lab or your apartment. Win-win.”

“Only if you take this over to Barb,” Jane replied, setting her coffee down and handing Darcy a tablet. “It has all the latest data that Fitz and Simmons asked for, and she’ll securely transmit it to them.”

“Fine,” Darcy harrumphed and got up. “What exactly is it you’re helping them with, anyway?”

“I’m not,” Jane responded, already turning back to her machines. “They’re helping me with developing the latest schematics for a bi-frost device.”

“Oooh. You mean something that’s not still held together with duct-tape and faith?”

“They’re not held together with -” Jane was cut off mid-glare as a piece of the machine she had started tinkering with fell to the floor with a clang.

“That just proved my point. I’m going to just,” Darcy waved her hands at the door, “go on and deliver this.” She trailed off as she left the lab, and called back over her shoulder. “Have fun with that!”

  
________

 

That evening after work, Darcy was making her way off the Subway to walk to her apartment building when her phone started singing the chorus to Clapton’s _Rock n’ Roll Heart_. She grinned as she fumbled through her bag, doing a triumphant skip as she answered the phone. “Hiya, Kev!”

“And good evening to you too, Monkey.” She could hear the smile in her brother’s voice over the phone, even as she rolled her eyes at the nick name.

“Seriously? You’re bringing that nickname up again? I thought I’d broken you of the habit, at least.”

“Um, no. I helped change your diapers. This means I can call you whatever I want.”

“That works when I’m 10, not when I’m 21. Try again,” she told him, weaving in and out of pedestrians on the sidewalk as she approached her building.

“Okay - so, Monkey, how was your first practice?”

Darcy paused and scowled as she dug her keys out to unlock the front door of the building. “Grant called you, didn’t he? You both gossip more than little old ladies. He couldn’t wait to let me tell you myself?”

“He was proud of you, and since he was calling me anyway, he thought he’d share. Give the guy a break, Darce.”

“Whatever,” she muttered as she made her way up the stairs.

“Darce -”

“No. Not talking about that right now,” she trailed off as Ben raced down the stairs beside her, calling out a “Hi Darcy! By Darcy!” as he sped by her. “BYE BEN!” she yelled back, and turned her attention back to her phone.

“Who were you yelling at?” Kevin sounded like he was in pain. “You almost busted my eardrums. Ouch.”

“Sorry,” Darcy winced in sympathy. “That was my neighbor. He’s on the team.”

“Speaking of teams, anything you want to tell me?”

Darcy sighed heavily into the phone, unlocking her door. “It’s a recreational baseball team. We practice every other day for an hour and a half at the park across from my apartment. We’ll get the game schedule tomorrow.”

“And what’s the league like? Are you the only girl? What happens if you have problems with anyone on the team acting inappropriately?”

She rolled her eyes, collapsing onto her couch. “I’ve had _one_ practice. One. And I know four of the guys on the team, and one is my neighbor, and two are former military.  I get the feeling that they’ll stop anything before it happens. In addition, I’m getting to know the team. They seem fine. On the off chance that I do have a problem, coach pulled me aside after practice yesterday. He’s a former Ranger. Grant would like him.”

“The point, Darcy.”

“Right, well - I’m not the only girl in the league, but there aren’t many of us. Some guys on the other teams might have issues with it, but the Umps don’t stand for it, nor do the coaches. I was told to go to him if I have issues, and there will always be women’s lockers open for me, so it’s a non-issue. Chill. Besides - I’m glad you finally returned my call. It’s time to plan Grant’s Birthday Box. It’s coming up soon.”

“I thought you’d decided that, how’d you phrase it ‘It’s getting boring and Grant has no sense of humor’ after the last two incidents?”

“I changed my mind.”  
  
Kevin sounded resigned as he replied. “Again?”  
  
“I’m entitled to do so, Kev. Besides, I haven’t seen Grant in almost a year, so I’m making him a box.”  
  
There was a long sigh on the other end of the line. “Just – control your enthusiasm. You sent him My Little Pony Cupcakes when he was stationed overseas. He still gets shit from his buddies for that.”

She toed off her shoes, absently noting that she needed to repaint her nails as she streched out on the couch and replied. “My Little Pony is awesome, what are you talking about? Besides, it was _vintage_ My Little Pony, which is so much better. And don’t lie – you know he actually enjoyed it. I got requests from about half of his buddies to make and send cupcakes to their kids, _and_ they gave me suggestions for what to do the next year. Anyway, I was thinking of doing something a bit different this year.”

“Different how? Why can’t you just send a card like I do?”

“Pfft. Cards are boring. Besides, it’s tradition.”

  
________

 

“Darcy, why didn’t you ask us to help with the groceries?” Steve asked as he opened the front door to the townhouse.

It was Friday evening and Darcy, slightly breathless, allowed Steve and Bucky to take two of the large bags she was carrying, leaving her with the third to follow them through the front door. “Because I’m a self-sufficient woman and can carry them on my own. Though if you lived even two houses further, I probably would have just collapsed on the sidewalk and called you to carry them and me in.”

“What all did you buy?” Bucky asked, attempting to snoop into the bag as he carried it into the kitchen, narrowly hitting a wall in the process. Darcy rolled her eyes as she followed him, plopping her bag down on the counter.

“You’re about to find out now, Bucky.” She slapped his hand away, and began to unload items onto the counter.

“That’s a lot of meat,” Steve remarked, looking at the packages with four different kinds of meat piling up on the counter.

“Bucky did request no Tofu. So lasagna it is. Hope you’re hungry,” Darcy smiled at him before turning back to setting everything in place.

“What can we do to help?” Bucky asked, reaching to take the ceramic chef’s knife that Darcy had just unwrapped from a tea-towel.

She smacked his hand. “No touching Shelly until I’ve assessed your knife skills. And you can get out some bowls.” She pointed the knife at him. Bucky reached out and pushed it down and away from him, a look of trepidation on his face.

“You named your knife?” He shook his head wonderingly. “You named your knife, your mit, the voice of your GPS unit. Do you just name everything? If so, you’ll fit in here just fine.”

“Yes, I do,” Darcy smiled. “Did you know that there are many cultures throughout the world that believe objects have souls too? I’m just honoring that tradition. Do you name things too?”

“I do, sometimes. And Steve’s named his motorcycle. But I’ll have you know that my knife skills are better than yours.”

“Prove it then,” Darcy said, then held up her hand as he opened his mouth to speak. “With your own knife.”

Steve laughed, bending to get bowls out of a cabinet. “I set the bottle of wine and the baking dish you asked for on the counter in the pantry.”

“Good, you can get them out then. Could you please pour me a glass?” Darcy asked as she set the oven to preheat before going to check on Bucky’s progress.

Steve snapped a salute at her. “Ma’am, yes ma’am.”

Darcy and Bucky threw vegetable scraps at him.

“Don’t be such an ass,” Darcy said at the same time Bucky exclaimed “Don’t be a jackass, and get me one too.” They glanced at each other and started laughing as Steve brushed vegetable scraps off of his torso.

It was comfortable, Darcy mused, as she worked in tandem with Steve and Bucky. Like spending time with Jane, or when she would cook with her brothers when both of them were home. Except she didn’t have this kind of working flow with her brothers.

They traded stories of learning to cook, discussing favorite recipes, and amusing disasters in the kitchen. Darcy had learned out of necessity as neither of her brothers were very good at cooking. Steve had learned in order to both spend time with and help out his mom before she died. Bucky had learned from Steve, as it was cheaper to eat in than to eat out, and they hadn’t been able to afford much.

While Darcy had a varied repertoire of recipes, Steve was a decent baker, if only because his mother was as well, and both Steve and Bucky excelled at casseroles and soups.

“When you’re living on a budget, you learn real quick how to stretch out scraps and leftovers,” Bucky had mentioned while putting usable vegetables scraps in Tupperware for use later.

“I know,” Darcy concurred. “That’s what Everything But The Kitchen Sink Soup is for.”

 

Granted, cooking with her brothers involved more giving of directions and less questions and cursing…

 

“A _roux_? Why the hell am I making a red? It’s a color, not food.” Bucky exclaimed, looking at the tattered hand written recipe card.

“It’s not a color, it’s a cooking term. You know, blending flour and fat, butter in this case, to create the thickening agent in the white sauce.” Darcy replied not even bothering to look up from making her ragu.

“I can make a white sauce, Kitten, this is just ...” Bucky trailed off, dropping his whisk in the pan, warily watching Darcy as she whirled around, brandishing her spoon,”…the best lasagna recipe ever?”

“Yes, yes it is. Now hurry up and add the milk before you brown the butter and flour too much.”

 

“What’s this?” Steve asked, playing with the fluted metal tin with a removable bottom.

“What’s what?” Darcy responded, looking up from blending dough together with her fingers. “It’s a tart pan and I need it.” She grabbed the tart pan out of his hands and proceeded to line the pan with the dough she had just finished.

"Darcy," Steve asked incredulously, “how is it that you didn’t own your own dishes until last weekend, but you have an obviously well used tart pan?”

"Priorities, Steve. Priorities. Tart pans are necessary."

“What kind of tart are you making?” Bucky turned from where he was sliding the Lasagna into the oven.

“Strawberry,” Darcy said absently, washing her hands in the sink before maneuvering around him to set the timer on her phone.

“I do enjoy a good tart,” Bucky mused.

Darcy snorted, setting her phone back down. “You do look like the kind of guys who would enjoy a good fruity tart.”

“I’m not sure I like what you’re implying there, doll,” Steve raised his eyebrows at her.

“Implying nothing,” Darcy grinned at them both.  “Hell, I’ve seen you go through pies like they’re water. Besides, I’m just getting to know your oven.”

“You’re getting to know it?” Bucky looked like he was questioning her sanity. 

“You can’t just dive into a relationship with an oven. You have to build up to it. Make a few cupcakes before you try a cheesecake. And a tart is a good way to do it, as it’s hard to ruin a tart shell. Or at least, this recipe. There was this one time...” Darcy trailed off.

“So you’re going to make cupcakes next?” Bucky interrupted her reverie.

“You want me to?” she asked, surprised.

“If you’ll make them, we’ll eat them,” Steve affirmed.

“I can make them tomorrow, but I’d need to keep at least a dozen.”

“Why?” Bucky asked, reaching around her to grab his wine glass from off the counter.

“Grant’s birthday is next week, and I wanted to make him some cupcakes to send. He could use a little sweetness in his life right about now.”

Steve smiled at her. “If you wanna do it here instead of at your place, we’re not going to complain.”

“I’m glad. Especially since my oven and I have decided to part ways. It’s an asshole, and burned the last two batches of brownies I tried to bake.”

________

After eating dinner she had badgered, pled, and begged to play the boy’s IronGamer.

“Why are you so hell bent on playing tonight?” Steve said, stretched out on the bench at the Kitchen table.

“Why are you so reluctant to let me? Afraid you’ll lose?”

“Lose at what?” Bucky asked, incredulously. “The game we’re not playing?”

She had threatened to withhold dessert if they didn’t play, and, after much cajoling, the guys had caved and turned the system on. She’d  then proceeded to kick both their butts at Borderlands 2.

“Damn it Darcy,” Bucky exclaimed as a headshot took out his character. “Would you stop doing that?”  
  
Steve elbowed Darcy, not taking his eyes off the screen. “How is it you’re so good at this? You’ve played it before, haven’t you?”

Darcy kept her eyes focused on the screen, as fake gunfire echoed through the room. “I’ve  played Borderlands before, but not this one. Watch your six! Man, I am really liking this new gun. Totally worth picking up, even though it took me a few rounds of ammo to get a feel for it.”

Bucky, hunched over his own controller, was pushing buttons furiously. “Have you ever even shot a real gun before? Seriously.”

“Not since I was 16. Grant made sure Kevin and I both knew how to use firearms without shooting our own toes off. Now stop trying to distract me.”

________

“Guys, I can just take the couch. It’s more than comfy enough.”

“Why won’t you just take the twin?” Steve asked, frustrated. It was past two in the morning when they had determined that no matter how many rematches she gave them, they couldn’t beat her. She’d tried to go home, but they wouldn’t let her walk alone at that time of night. When she’d protested that she could take care of herself, they pointed out that it was late, it was raining (she hadn’t even noticed) and that she could take the twin bed upstairs. That, of course, had started the most recent argument.

“Because I’m not going to take your bed from you, Steve, that’s rude.”

“Not if he’s the one offering.” Bucky looked almost as exasperated as Steve. “Are you always this argumentative when someone’s trying to be helpful?”

“When they’re being pigheaded, yes! Besides, where would you sleep? On the couch? You’re too big for it to be comfy, even as oversized as it is!”

“No, I’ll just bunk with Bucky. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve shared close quarters.” Steve shook his head. “Just take the damn thing.”

“Fine! I’ll take the bed. Happy?”

“Yes. Very. Do you need to borrow any toiletries?”

“Steve. Bucky, relax," She glowered at the two of them "Seriously. I went to college. I know how to bunk over at someone’s place.”

________  
  
  
Darcy woke up, thirsty, thinking she really should have had more water to go with the half bottle of wine she’d had with dinner, only to be disoriented as she didn’t quite remember where she was as she stared at an unfamiliar ceiling. It came back to her slowly, and she grinned as she remembered.

She threw back the covers and sat up, smiling. She stretched a little, then grimaced at the fuzzy feeling in her mouth. She glanced around the dark room, her eyes coming to rest on the two forms on the bed across from her, and blinked in surprise.

Steve was spooning Bucky. She got up, and as silently as she could, padded into the restroom, staring at the boys in the bed. They looked relaxed and comfortable with each other, and she wondered if she’d read the situation wrong earlier, if the two were more than friends. She grabbed a glass off the counter and filled it with water, mulling over their interactions.

When she tiptoed back to bed, Bucky was sprawled on his back, and Steve was curled around his pillow.

________

  
Bucky walked into the bedroom, and took a moment to just drink Darcy in. She was on her side, curled around the pillow, dark hair spread out across the twin bed, the sheet having been kicked down to her waist. He smiled softly, before sitting down on the edge of the bed to and reaching out to shake her shoulder. “Darcy, wake up. Pancakes.”

“Go ‘way, Kevin. Don’t wanna go to school.” She curled tighter into the pillow.

He huffed out a laugh under his breath, and shook her shoulder again. “Come on kitten, wake up.”

This time she opened her eyes a bit to glare at him, before releasing the pillow and cuddling around him instead.

“Wha--” He started, confused, before gently trying to remove her arms from around him without hurting her. For such a petite thing, she had a damn firm grip. And he was enjoying having her curled up around him bit too much. “Kitten, let go. I’m not your teddy bear.”

She curled around him even more, burrowing her head more firmly into his lap. “Don’t be stupid. ‘Course you’re not. Your name’s not Theodore. Sleep.”

“Steve’s down stairs making pancakes. Don’t you want to eat?” He cajoled.

“No. Bears don’t talk. Sleep. The bed’s nice. Smells like Steve.”

Bucky’s brows shot straight up, as he relaxed and settled back against the headboard, swinging his feet up to be completely on the bed. He was strangely comfortable with Darcy wrapped around him like a vine. She seemed so happy, curled around him in a tiny bed that smelled of his best friend’s aftershave. He relaxed into her embrace, content.

“Five minutes, Kitten,” He said, running his hand through her hair.  “Then we’re heading downstairs.”

“Kay,” she whispered, and he closed his eyes, leaning his head back, resting.

The room was brighter when he woke later. He craned his head trying to see the clock that was on his nightstand across the room, and caught sight of Steve who was leaning against the door jam, arms crossed, a soft look on his face as he gazed at them.

Steve raised his brows, and flicked his eyes from Bucky’s to where his hand was still tangled in Darcy’s hair. Bucky smirked and shrugged as Darcy chose that moment to rub her face into his stomach. He looked away from Steve to glance down at her, only to look back to see Steve’s eyebrows were disappearing into his hairline.

“Gonna explain, Buck?” Steve asked, voice low so as not to disturb Darcy.

“Well, I’m not going to object when a gorgeous dame pulls me into bed,” he replied, voice just as low. “And now I’m apparently her teddy bear,” he was about to continue when Darcy stirred.

“He’s not Teddy. Bucky,” she murmured.     

“I stand corrected, Kitten,” Bucky grinned, then looked at Steve. “I’m her Bucky Bear.”

Steve smirked. “Well, you’d best get your furry ass up, the pancakes are getting cold.”

“No,” Darcy whined. “This is better than pancakes.”

“Uh huh. Come on, get up,” Steve coaxed, as Bucky attempted to extract his limbs and get out of bed.

“No.” She held onto him tighter.

Bucky gave Steve an exasperated look. “A little help here?”

He laughed, and walked over to the bed. “Either you get up yourself, or I’m going to carry you down, doll.”

She grumbled, but still didn’t get out of bed.

“You asked for it,” he said, and Darcy shrieked as Steve picked her bodily off the bed, sheets and all, and swung her over his shoulder to carry her out of the room while Bucky laughed and followed them out the door. “Christ, it’s like having a five year old.”

“I object to that! I’m at least eight!”

________

“These are good Steve,” Darcy said, tucking into her second helping of pancakes

“Worth finally waking up for?” Steve asked, pouring an obscene amount of maple syrup over his third stack.

Darcy just grinned. “I don’t know, I was having some pretty awesome dreams involving you and a bear that sounded an awful lot like Bucky here.”

Bucky choked on his orange juice. “You curled into me this morning calling me your teddy bear. Probably where the dream came from.”

Darcy frowned at him. “I doubt that I called you my teddy bear.  My bear is named Theodore, and he objects to diminutives.”

“Your bear is called Theodore?” Steve grinned at her. “That’s kind of a mouthful for a kid.”

“I was precocious. Though I can kind of see how I might have mistook Bucky for Theodore. ”

“How?” Bucky asked, petulant.

“Well, both are great to cuddle and are good at keeping nightmares away.”

“I can see that." Steve grinned as Bucky sat back, exasperated.

“So what, I’m just a... a talisman against the dark for you? What about me and my needs?”

“I don’t know, you looked pretty content in Steve’s arms last night,” Darcy snarked.

“You looked pretty damn happy with Darcy wrapped around you,” Steve sassed.

Darcy laughed, glancing at Steve and seeing him catch Bucky’s eye, and then sobered. “Speaking of that - am I intruding?”

Both men focused on her. “No. Why would you ask? _We_ were the ones who had to badger you into staying last night,” Steve replied, reaching out to hold her hand.

She looked down at the large, calloused hand that so gently held hers. “Well, you two were pretty close last night.” She sighed and looked up at Steve and Bucky. “I just don’t want to overstep into your relationship -”

Bucky glanced at Steve, his eyes conveying something that she couldn’t quite read. Whatever it was, it made Steve relax. “Darcy, we’re not in a relationship.”

“Oh. Okay then.”

Steve smiled gently. “And feel free to intrude anytime. We like having you here.”

________

 

“Enjoy.” Grant said, carrying a bakery box into the lounge area of the Bus where Jemma, Leo, and Skye were talking. Well, Jemma and Skye were talking, Leo looked like he was trying to escape.

“Um, Grant?” Skye asked, having opened the box.

“Yes?” he responded, working his way out of the room, a bit too casually.

“Why do you have cupcakes?”

“I asked for a sample of some cupcakes to send my brother for his birthday. They apparently messed up the order, and sent them here.” He shrugged, and started walking out of the room before anyone could say anything else. “I figured I’d share.” 

“Ward?”

Grant turned to Coulson in the hallway, out of hearing range of the others, and raised his brows inquiringly. “Sir?”

“Your brother’s birthday isn’t for another three months. Yours was last week.”

Grant stared at Coulson, not saying anything.

“I won’t tell them. But you tried to hack into a New York Metro Baseball Leagues roster and the cupcakes were mailed from New York. Word of advice? Stop pissing off your friend. I don’t think she’s appreciating your recent actions.”

“Why do you think a woman sent them?” Ward’s face tightened almost imperceptibly as he came subtly alert.

Coulson shook his head, walking into the lounge. “Most men don’t send Rainbow Bright Cupcakes. They send Ninja Turtles.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lasagna that Darcy makes is actually my favorite lasagna recipe. It also takes longer to make in real life than it does in the story. Yay fiction?
> 
>  Also - i have the tart recipe, and will post it if people want. The lasagna recipe is kind of long, so I limited myself to just it.
> 
> First thing you need to do is make the sauces. Plural.
> 
> Ragu Bolognese  
> ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil  
> 4 Tbsp butter  
> 2 medium onions, finely chopped  
> 4 stalks celery, finely chopped  
> 1 carrot, scraped and finely chopped  
> 5 cloves garlic, sliced  
> 1 pound veal, ground  
> 1 pound pork, ground  
> ½ pound beef, ground  
> ¼ pound pancetta, ground (if your butcher can't do this, use a food processor- chop the pancetta into cubes, freeze it for at least 20 minutes, and then pulse in your food processor in batches for 8-10 seconds until it resembled ground meat - check it over for large pieces and regrind if necessary)  
> 1 cup whole milk  
> 6 oz can of tomato paste  
> 1 cup dry white wine  
> Salt and pepper
> 
> In a 6 to 8-quart, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add onion, celery, carrot and garlic and sweat over medium heat until vegetables are translucent. Add veal, pork, beef and pancetta and stir into vegetables. Brown over high heat, stirring to keep meat from sticking together. This should take 15 to 20 minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook in. Add the milk and simmer until reduced to nothing, about 10 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer over for 2 to 2 ½ hours. Season with salt and pepper, to taste and remove from heat.
> 
> Bechamel Sauce  
> 5 Tbsp butter  
> 4 Tbsp flour  
> 3 cups milk  
> 2 tsp salt  
> ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
> 
> In a medium saucepan, make a roux out of the butter and flour (heat butter until melted, add flour and stir until smooth. Over medium heat, cook until light golden brown, about 6 to 7 minutes.)
> 
> Meanwhile, heat milk in separate pan until just about to boil. Add milk to the roux 1 cup at a time, whisking continuously until very smooth and bring to a boil. Cook 10 minutes and remove from heat. Season with salt and nutmeg and set aside.
> 
> Next, make the lasagna!
> 
> you will need:  
> 8 oz Parmigiano-Reggiano, for grating
> 
> and a box of lasagna noodles, if you prefer not to make homemade or:
> 
> 4 extra large eggs  
> 1/2 tsp extra virgin olive oil  
> 6 oz frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and squeezed very dry and chopped very fine  
> 3.5 to 4 C unbleached AP flour, plus 1/2 C for dusting work surfaces
> 
> If you are making the spinach noodles:  
> Combine eggs and spinach. Mound 3 ½ cups of the flour in the center of a large wooden cutting board. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the egg and spinach mixture and the olive oil. Using a fork, beat together the spinach, eggs and oil and begin to incorporate the flour, starting with the inner rim of the well.
> 
> As you expand the well, keep pushing the flour up from the base of the mound to retain the well shape. The dough will come together when half of the flour is incorporated.
> 
> Start kneading the dough with both hands, using the palms of your hands. Once you have a cohesive mass, remove the dough from the board and scrape up and discard any leftover bits. Lightly reflour the board and continue kneading for 6 more minutes. The dough should be elastic and a little sticky. Wrap the dough in plastic and allow to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions and roll each out to the thinnest setting on a pasta rolling machine.
> 
> Bring about 6 quarts of water to a boil and add 2 Tbsp salt. Set up an ice bath next to the stove top. Cut the pasta into 20 (5-inch) squares and drop into the boiling water. Cook 1 minute, until tender. Drain well and refresh in the ice bath. Drain on towels and set aside.
> 
> IF you are like me, this recipe is long enough without making your own noodles, just boil packaged lasagna noodles according to the directions on the box, drain well, set aside.
> 
> Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a brownie pan, assemble the lasagne, beginning with a layer of ragu, a sprinkling of grated Parmigiano, a layer of pasta, a layer of bechamel, a layer of ragu, a sprinkling of grated Parmigiano etc. until all sauce and pasta are used up. The top layer should be pasta with bechamel over it. Top the lasagne with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and bake in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes, until the edges are browned and the sauces are bubbling. Remove and allow to cool for 10 minutes before slicing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fan Art for Higher then Soul Can Hope](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132865) by [Lymmel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lymmel/pseuds/Lymmel)




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